Sarah LaVallie: Bringing Renewable Energy & Electricity to Native American Communities

We met Sarah LaVallie over Zoom on March 22, 2024: a cold and overcast day. However, learning more about Sarah and her work with Native Sun definitely brought some sunniness to an otherwise gloomy day. Going into this interview, we were curious to discover what exactly Sarah’s work as a senior policy and program analyst entailed as well as how an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering led her to renewable energy and her work with Native Sun. We wondered what led her to change her mechanical engineering career to one more based in Environmental Policy.

Sarah, a member of Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, was raised in Dunseith, North Dakota. She is currently working on a project with Native Sun to expand Native American tribal access to renewable energy and electric vehicles. On its website, Native Sun describes itself as a “Native-led nonprofit organization that promotes energy efficiency, renewable energy and equitable energy transition through education, workforce training and demonstration.” Sarah has a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from North Dakota State University and a Master’s in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy from the University of Minnesota. For Native Sun, she is a senior policy and program analyst.

In regard to her mechanical engineering degree, Sarah shared with us that seeing the impact that technology can have on communities has been something that resonated with her. Implementations of certain pieces of technology can be game-changers for select communities, and Sarah stated that she found purpose in observing these impacts as well as working on the tech itself. So, Sarah pursued a mechanical engineering degree that was essentially “based in policy.” By combining environmental policy with engineering, she could access the more human parts of her position by working with communities to make innovative tech more accessible. When we heard this answer, it immediately made sense to us and helped us deepen our understanding of Sarah and her work: she cares about the people and the communities she helps at the intersection of technology and environmental policy.

Sarah, in her Native Sun bio and in our interview, stated that her “passion for renewable energy” blossomed when she interned with Sandra Begay at Sandia National Labs through the Office of Indian Energy internship program. When asked to give future activists and environmentalists advice, Sarah stressed the importance of taking advantage of both opportunities at hand and those requiring further pursuit, such as internships. Working closely with Begay, Sarah said, was pivotal in discovering her interest in and passion for renewable energy. However, it was not just her education that sparked an interest in caring for the environment. During our interview, Sarah mentioned that her upbringing played a significant role in her preservation of the environment: “My dad is an outdoorsman…he instilled in me a love for the environment and the outdoors…My mom was a big advocate for clean water as well as banning fracking on the reservation…” And now, looking forward, she wants to ensure a safe and sustainable future for her nieces. We appreciated that Sarah, while still young herself, shared her concerns about younger generations and their futures. It was clear to us that the passion for her work is deeply rooted by her strong moral values.

Sarah was a recipient of the Graduate Education Minority (GEM) Fellowship at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) based in Denver, Colorado. According to a 2021 article published by the NREL, the GEM Fellowship “recruits underrepresented minorities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) who are in graduate school or interested in going to graduate school,” and is “committed to…striving to be a pipeline to recruit, attain, and support diverse talent” (DuBose, 2021). Sarah learned about the NREL during her internship with Begay, and said that she was “reading a lot of research from NREL and used a lot of the maps and tools from NREL for my internship,” and after that, it became one of her goals to work at the NREL one day (DuBose, 2021).

Now, Sarah works with Native Sun on the Electric Nation Project, which works with Native American communities such as Red Lake, Standing Rock, and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa—Sarah’s tribe back home—to increase access to electric vehicles and renewable energy. This means providing electric vehicles, charging stations/hubs for the EVs, installing electricity in places that lack it, and many other factors. The project has a DOE-funded grant and is backed by multiple partners such as Standing Rock (“SAGE”) Renewable Energy Power Authority. When asked how exactly the Project gets in contact with these communities, Sarah mentioned that a lot of the connections are made through the Project’s “very extroverted” executive director Bob Blake, his existing relationships with different communities, and word of mouth. Regarding that last point, word of mouth, Sarah shared that the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa community saw the press that was being published about the Project and subsequently reached out to the members of the Project. We found it intriguing to hear that Sarah’s own community found the Project and thought, what a small world! Also, it was important to note that it was her community that reached out to the Native Sun organization, not the other way around. One thing that Sarah pointed out is the Project’s commitment to ensuring that it stays in alignment with each tribe’s goals, needs, and strengths. Each part of the project is tailored to each community’s needs and strengths.

To ensure the project’s longevity, even after the DOE-funded ‘window’ has ended, Sarah and the rest of her team ensure that the access and “solutions” that they are proposing to the various communities are sustainable and naturally fit within the environment of the tribes. The renewable energy being introduced needs to continue to be accessible, affordable, and sustainable for the community. Therefore, an important part of the project is relationship-building and finding community-based solutions to ensure the longevity of the project even after the grant phase ends.

With her project in mind, Sarah tackles many environmental issues that have burdened Native American communities, one of which is the lack of access to renewable energy and electricity in Native American Nations. Based on a 2023 report from the US Department of the Interior, 21% of Navajo Nation homes and 35% of Hopi Indian Tribe homes are still unelectrified. Historically, Native American Nations were and are burdened by extractive processes of fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas and oil due to 35% of America’s fossil fuel resources held on Native American Reservations (Newland, 2023). These sources of energy are not sustainable and have harsh impacts on the environment. Thus, bringing in renewable energy to Native communities could stabilize long-term energy costs, sustain natural resources and promote energy self-sufficiency for these communities.

Nevertheless, there are many administrative, financial, and legal issues that prevent bringing renewable energy. In our interview, Sarah mentions, “there’s a mismatch between the capacities [of tribes] and the requirements of federal grants…”. She explains that the bridge between what can be done by tribal communities and what is required for them to obtain federal funding can be too far from each other. She notes that implementing project plans for Native communities can be difficult, but there are highlights to the work she is doing at Native Sun. Electric Nation Project’s most recent accomplishment this past January was the delivery of nine electric vehicles to the Red Lake Nation and the construction of charging stations for local community use–a huge achievement after hearing about the administrative difficulties in the process of bringing in electricity and renewable energy into the community. She is hopeful and passionate that her work in bringing sufficient and sustainable energy to Native communities will be achieved and will decrease the gap of accessing electricity. 

Past renewable energy projects made by state or federal governments have failed to evaluate any environmental issues affecting Indigenous tribes and have delayed permitting and contract negotiations for these renewable energy projects which contributes to the tribes’ difficulty in securing financial backing for these projects (Zimmerman, 2021). Sarah emphasizes her views on bridging the gap between Native communities’ needs for renewable energy and what her work and project can provide. She says that help is welcomed and wanted by each community she visits and that she works directly to help build relationships with individual members of Native communities in order to ensure that her projects are sustainable and will help communities long-term. 

When we asked Sarah how people can join the environmental justice movement, she encouraged people to take advantage of opportunities to get involved such as internships and just getting out there to find what people are passionate about. Her internship at Sandia National Labs changed her perspective on what she wanted to pursue in life in switching to environmental justice work from mechanical engineering. Her story comes to show that even the most contrasting opportunities could make a difference in a person’s life in contributing to the environmental justice movement.