Negotiators from seven Western states are under mounting pressure to agree on how to share the Colorado River’s shrinking water supply. The talks — involving California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico — aim to create a new conservation framework before current rules expire in 2026. Disagreements between upper- and lower-basin states over water cuts and releases from Lake Powell have stalled progress. The river sustains 40 million people, 30 Native tribes and millions of acres of farmland, but decades of overuse have left it so depleted that it now rarely reaches the sea.
