Eight years of record droughts have left western states squabbling over who gets how much water from which rivers, but now California, Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico have signed a historic twenty-year plan to share their dwindling dams and rivers more or less equally.

The plan spells out how the states will cope with reductions during droughts, but it doesn’t go far enough for some conservationists, who question why there’s no effort to limit growth in a region where resources are already stretched so thin.

As John Weisheit, conservation director for Living Rivers, asked NPR’s Ted Robbins, “What’s wrong with saying, “I’m sorry, we ran out of water, you can’t live here?”

Learn more about how you can help conserve water here.