On a Dusty Mesa, No Water or Electricity, but Boundless Space

Fermin Roman knew he was a pioneer when he bought his homestead on the Pajarito Mesa, a treeless plateau outside Albuquerque. But the seller assured him that water and power would arrive in a year or two. “I’m still waiting,” he said the other day, nearly 20 years later. Now home to more than 400 families, the mesa is one of the largest communities, other than some along the Mexican border, to survive entirely off the grid — without running water, electricity, streets or mail. Here is a maze of unnamed dirt roads, with nary a grocery store or barbershop in sight. Adding to the sense of dislocation, Albuquerque’s skyline shimmers, Oz-like, on the horizon, a half-hour’s drive away. Mr. Roman, like many of the hardy residents of the mesa, has improvised a frugal kind of comfort. Working evenings after his construction job, he wore out three wheelbarrows leveling an arroyo to build his cinder-block house. He hauls purchased water to elevated tanks that feed the kitchen sink, showers and flush toilets. Four solar panels run lights and television, while the refrigerator, stove and even his wife’s hair curler run on propane. The Pajarito Mesa community, scattered over 28 square miles, is 90 percent Hispanic and mostly poor, and includes an uncounted but large number of illegal immigrants. But they are not squatters: residents buy or rent their plots, and the owners pay property taxes, one of the many oddities of a community that is isolated in plain sight...more