That’s good news, but it doesn’t mean that Colorado, or any of the rest of the states that rely on its namesake river, is out of the woods when it comes to a shortage of water, explains Teal Lehto, a Durango-based TikTok creator and water advocate.
“I've definitely been fighting tooth and nail in my comments to explain to people that one year of good snow is not enough to pull us out of a two-decade-long drought,” she says. “I always try to explain that last year we had 91 percent of average snowpack, but the spring was super hot and dry. We actually ended up with like 58 percent of average flows in the river."
That issue is just one of many she hopes to educate people on through her TikTok account, westernwatergirl, where she explains in frank terms what the heck is going on with water in the western United States to her 54,000 followers.
She intersperses facts with fun, often referring to her audience as “y’all,” or using turns of phrase like “It’s popping off in the Colorado River Basin this week.” She kicks off a video about a hedge fund that has been buying land near the Colorado River headwaters, reportedly with plans to cash in when water becomes an even scarcer resource, by saying, “Just in case you were in need of further confirmation that we’re currently living through a dystopian nightmare....”
“Authenticity is the most important social capital that you can have for Gen Z and some millennials," Lehto says. "When I started my TikTok, that is just me. That's just raw. That's how I talk to people. That's how I explained these issues to my friends and family, and I felt, personally, when I started that it was best for me to just, like, speak the way that I normally would.”
@westernwatergirl Replying to @fullcirclemargaret #greenscreen I stg these dudes be out here thinking the monopoly man is supposed to be a good role model 🧐💰🤦🏻♀️ #fyp #news #water #watercrisis #waterislife #colorado #coloradoriver #coloradorivercrisis #coloradorivergirl #megadrought #drought #lakepowell #lakemead #environment #environmental #sustainable #sustainability #climate #naturalresources #environmentaljustice #conspiracy #conspiracytiktok #wallstreet #corruption #latestagecapitalism #profiteering #racket ♬ Cartoon-like rhythmic jazz - Kohrogi
Lehto usually uses TikTok’s green-screen effect to speak in front of news articles or primary sources evidencing what she’s describing. Her goal is to bring younger voices into the Western water conversation and help those in older generations understand how social media can be part of creating an impact in the real world.
“Oftentimes, with water in particular, a lot of the officials and policy-makers are so close to the problem that they are physically incapable of zooming out and explaining it in easy-to-understand terms for people,” Lehto says. “It's a complicated issue, and there are a lot of caveats, but the overall issue we're facing is we use too much water, and we're getting less water. That's not complicated. … Everyone is going to be impacted by this crisis, so everyone deserves to have some level of understanding of what's going on.”
The impacts of the crisis are personal to Lehto, who describes herself as a “water baby.” Growing up, she enjoyed being near rivers or creeks, camping on the Dolores River in Gateway, Colorado, with her family throughout her childhood. In high school and college, she was a river rafting guide on the Animas, observing the 2015 Gold King Mine spill firsthand.
At Fort Lewis College, she founded a water club called H2Org and coordinated excursions for students to learn more about water issues.
“I wrote my senior thesis on the Dolores River,” says Lehto, who earned a degree in environmental science with a minor in political science. “After graduating college, I was like, wow, I really want to keep doing this, and it turned out that it's really hard to get a job related to water, so that's kind of what led me to making my TikTok.”
Her first job was at an environmental consulting firm, but she quickly realized the firm mainly worked for the oil and gas industry. Then she applied for jobs with her local water conservation district, water-related nonprofits, and a job as an Animas Riverkeeper. She also tried to become a volunteer member of the Southwest Basin Roundtable, one of the nine roundtables across the state that help shape the development of the Colorado Water Plan, which was revised in 2022. None of those opportunities worked out.
“I have a lot of passion, and I care a lot, but a lot of times they told me that I would need to go back to school,” Lehto says. “With the basin roundtable position, they basically were like, ‘We really appreciate your enthusiasm and your passion, so maybe there's a better way for you to be involved.’ But there's never another way to be involved. There's this huge educational and, I'd say, socioeconomic barrier to involvement in a lot of these discussions.”
Since she couldn’t get an official water job, she works various seasonal jobs in Durango, such as being a Leave No Trace educator, along with coaching mountain biking and managing inventory at a local snowboard shop. That gives her time to make her TikToks and focus on advocacy.
“I had a lot of doors close in my face, and I was like, okay, well, if I can't get any of these doors open, then I'm gonna build my own door,” she says. “When I talked to my friends and I talked to my family, or even strangers, about these issues, by and large they had no idea it was happening. We're not doing a good enough job discussing it with the public, so I saw that that was definitely a niche that needed to be filled.”
And it’s work to fill that niche. Lehto says she spends five or six hours researching a topic before making a video about it; it’s important to her to maintain accuracy so that people can trust what she’s saying.
As Lehto continues her advocacy, she wants mainstream organizations involved in water management to see how important reaching out to different audiences is. She was part of a panel at the 2022 Colorado River Water Users Association conference. She said people there were mixed when it came to their reaction to her work.
“There is a lot of resistance, but it comes from this old guard of people, and the younger, more creative and forward-thinking folks are definitely very interested in the work I'm doing and supportive of it,” she says. “That's what I stressed in my speech at CRWUA on that panel, was that we need to involve young people and other underrepresented groups like Indigenous people and people of color in these discussions.”
To Lehto, not having the requisite formal education or years of industry experience doesn’t mean people aren’t impacted or their voices don’t count, and she thinks it’s time for those on the inside to recognize that. Also, she adds, it’s important that experts have a voice on social media, because if they don’t, people can more easily get sucked in by misinformation.
“I am certain that in the absence of clear and easy-to-understand communication, there are actors out there that are profiting off of spreading misinformation during this crisis, and that really concerns me,” Lehto says.
She fights with other TikTok creators who spread misinformation about water issues and tries to boost other creators in the environmental space doing work like hers in other niche areas, such as eradicating invasive species and recycling.
Lehto is searching for more opportunities to take her work off the web. For example, she’s participating in the Where Is the River? event in Phoenix on March 14, the International Day of Action for Rivers, to draw attention to the drying of the Salt River.
Though water is kind of her thing, she’s an avid volunteer for other issues, as well.
“I do care a lot about water, but I really just care about making the world a better place and finding a place where my voice, and other young people's voices, can be heard,” Lehto says.
At the Colorado Democratic Party’s Obama Gala Awards on April 1, Lehto will receive the Murphy Roberts Award, which is given to a person under the age of 25 who has shown dedication to the party and its values. Lehto, who is now 25, helped Democratic candidates sweep the ballot in La Plata County in 2022.
“Her local focus is on engaging youth,” says Karin Asensio, executive director of the Colorado Democratic Party, in a statement. “She put together a major music event in Durango for the under-28 crowd with an entry ticket of proof of Colorado voter registration.”
Lehto is pushing back against the idea that young people don’t care.
“When I speak to older policymakers and officials in this arena, they are under the general impression that young people just don't care or don't want to be involved, and I firmly disagree with that,” Lehto says. “Young people care a lot. They're just not used to using the traditional channels of involvement, so creating new avenues for them to be educated and involved in those decision-making processes is imperative.”
Because young people will have to live or die by the choices made about water management, Lehto says she believes they have both a right and a responsibility to be involved — and that government agencies should be working to make sure they connect to those groups.
"If you're a young person and you're passionate about an issue, but everybody who is already within that arena just keeps telling you, ‘Wait your turn,’ you're not going to engage in those power structures, because you're like, well, what's the point?” Lehto says.
She wants people to know there is a point. She reminds herself of The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss, where the lesson is that if you care, you need to act, because change can’t happen otherwise. When people say no, find another way, Lehto implores. In her case, that way was TikTok.
“Take that frustration of not being heard and use it as fuel for your fire, because you can either let it defeat you or you can let it fuel you,” she says. “Go for the latter. You would be absolutely shocked at how much of a difference and how much of an impact you can make by just using your voice.”
She's certainly made a splash using hers.
