This last year, the Colorado River saw one of its driest years in decades.

And now, federal officials project water levels could drop dramatically at its reservoirs in the near future.

These reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, they're only about 31% full.

And that's already triggering cutbacks for Arizona and Nevada as river supplies.

This isn't surprising for people who watch water, but the news is dialing up the tension among the states in the upper basin and the states in the lower basin of the Colorado River.

These seven states have been struggling in negotiations, trying to divide up the shrinking river, and they're on the clock.

Current guidelines dividing up water expire by the end of 2026.

Here's the problem demand has long outstrip supply, and that imbalance is only getting worse.

The region is drying out.

Climate change is fueling a megadrought and the river is starving.

With this new projection.

The Bureau of Reclamation says that under one dire scenario, Lake Powell could plunge below the levels needed to generate power by December 2026.

In fact, I talked to Benjamin Bass, a researcher at UCLA center for Climate Science, who has figured out that if current policies aren't updated, the reservoirs are highly likely to reach the state called Dead Pool at least once in the coming decades.

And Deadpool is the level at which water can no longer be released for these negotiations.

The big question among the states is how much water each basin should get.

California has senior claims to the water, so this coming year, nothing is expected to change.

But the stakes are high here for the future.

California takes the biggest share of Colorado River water, and more than half of the power generated at Lake Mead's Hoover Dam.

The state's top negotiator told me that a new proposal to allocate a percentage of the river's average flow to each basin is coming together.

We'll be following that.

The deadline is November.

For Calmatters, I'm Rachel Becker.