"SACATON, Arizona — Stephen Roe Lewis grew up seeing stacks of legal briefs at the dinner table — often, about his tribe’s water.
His father, the late Rodney Lewis, was general counsel for the Gila River Indian Community and fought for the tribe’s rights to water in the Southwest, eventually securing in 2004 the largest Native American water settlement in U.S. history.
Years later, Stephen would become governor of the tribe, whose reservation is about a half-hour south of downtown Phoenix. Amid his tenure, he’s been pivotal in navigating a water crisis across the seven-state Colorado River basin caused by existential drought made worse by climate change and decades of Western states overdrawing from the river.
Lewis, 56, has leveraged the Gila River tribe’s water abundance to help Arizona, making his tribe a power player in the parched region. His fingerprints are on many recent, high-stakes decisions made in the West about the future of the river that supports 40 million people, and the tribe’s influence is only growing."
Suman Naishadham and Terry Tang report for the Associated Press June 26, 2024.
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