Teal Lehto is a water rights activist located in Durango, Colorado. Teal currently runs a TikTok account dedicated to water conservation issues in the Colorado River Basin with over 65,000 followers and was featured in NPR's Morning Edition and BBC’s Panorama for her advocacy work on the platform. Teal became a certified raft guide before attending college, and founded the first Junior Women’s raft racing team in the US, her team won the 2017 US Rafting Championships and represented the country at the World Rafting Championships in 2017 and 2018.

Teal attended Fort Lewis College where she founded a club dedicated to water resource issues in the southwest, and then graduated in 2020 with a degree in Environmental Studies and Political Science. These experiences created a deep love of rivers and whitewater for Teal, and respect for the connections they can bring across cultural barriers, which has guided her every move since.