Arizona water leaders warned that a 1922 agreement that divides water from the Colorado River among seven western states could be breached as soon as 2026 amid falling snowpack, declining reservoir levels and stalled negotiations over river operations, according to reported remarks from a Monday Arizona Reconsultation Committee Meeting.

A boat moves around Horseshoe Bend along the Colorado River in Page, Arizona. (Joshua Lott/The Washington Post) For a life-sustaining natural resource relied on by tens of millions of people and fought over by seven states and two countries, the fate of the Colorado River often flies under the national political radar.

Chronic overuse of groundwater, forest destruction, land degradation, and pollution have caused irreversible freshwater loss in many parts of the world, problems that are compounded by climate change.