In a rare public statement on contentious water use negotiations, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo urged the seven Colorado River Basin states to come to an agreement as time runs out to strike one.

Lombardo thanked Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in a letter dated Tuesday for hosting a meeting in Washington, D.C. this week with all the state’s governors and appointed negotiators and asked him to schedule another one in January “as the risks of inaction continue to grow.”

What happens in the inter-state negotiating room in the coming months has immense implications for Southern Nevada, which sources about 90 percent of its water supply from Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir.

Federal water managers project the Colorado River reservoir, about 28 percent full this week, will decline below h

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