(NewsNation) — Wyoming Congresswoman Harriet Hageman has had enough of California’s lack of large-scale seawater desalinization.
Lake Mead, the Colorado River Reservoir, has dropped to its lowest level since it was filled in the 1930s, with the reservoir is currently sitting at only 27% capacity.
California has blocked and underdeveloped large-scale seawater desalinization for years and the state, which borders an ocean, takes a large share of Colorado River water.
According to the Department of Energy, desalination is the “process of removing salts and other minerals from water, making it suitable for human consumption, irrigation, or industrial uses.”
Republican Congresswoman Hageman, a member of the committee on natural resources, sat down with “Katie Pavlich Tonight” to discuss what she believes needs to be done.
“California has failed its people and has failed the interior West in terms of its refusal to actually develop water for its citizens. California has essentially the same water infrastructure in place today with 40 million people that they had in the 1960s with 16 million people,” Hageman told NewsNation.
“One of the very things, one of the few things that the government ought to be doing is making sure that they are providing resources such as water for their citizens, for industrial use, for commercial use, for irrigation and agriculture.”
Hageman, who is the chairman of the Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee, says California needs to invest capital and resources to expand existing reservoirs, in addition to building new one.
“Hundreds of millions of gallons of water every single year leave the state of California going directly into the ocean, not being used, not being managed well with in-stream flows and things like that. It’s just a real failure of leadership for the state of California,” she said.
In June, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation signed a memorandum of understanding with water agencies in California, Arizona and Nevada in an attempt to solve the water issues.