As a multidecade megadrought continues in the West, the Colorado River Basin is drying up. Today we’ll talk about what that means for the millions of people who depend on that water. And we’ll look at what states and regulators are doing to ensure that communities get the water they need to survive.

Seven western states are frantically working to reach an agreement on how to divvy up the available water ahead of a Feb. 1 deadline—at which point the federal government has suggested it would impose its own rules to fix the problem.

That's the topic of discussion on today's Parts Per Billion, our weekly environmental podcast. Bloomberg Law’s water and public lands reporter, Bobby Magill, explains what's at stake—and which states might get first dibs at the dwindling water supply.

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