10/19/2025
🌊 Restoring the River is an Act of Justice
For generations, Indigenous communities have honored rivers as living relatives. Restoring the South Platte means restoring our relationships with the land, water, and each other.
The oil and gas industry has been harming our communities for far too long, putting profit over the health and safety of neighborhoods in North Denver/Commerce City who are already among the most polluted in the nation. Over the past few years, records show Suncor Oil Refinery has been releasing an extraordinary amount of toxic PFAs “forever chemicals”, benzene, and other toxins into the Sand Creek and South Platte River, contaminating Coloradans drinking water.
We must keep advocating for stronger protection measures, additional PFAs regulation, accountability, and community-led efforts to help heal the River.
The River Sisters Congreso, a coalition of Indigenous and Chicano/Mexicano land and water protectors, is reimagining the South Platte through cultural restoration, land stewardship, and traditional ecological knowledge rooted in Indigenous stewardship and environmental justice. We stand in solidarity with the River Sisters’ efforts for river restoration and cultural recognition, including the creation of a “Turquoise Necklace” Riverwalk that tells the true history of this land, its original stewards, and our collective cultural resilience.
We all have a collective responsibility to rebuild systems that will bring balance back to the Earth, protecting the land, water, air, and our future generations. By holding industries accountable and coming together to restore our waterways, we restore our own relationships with the land, the water, our cultures, and with each other.
Photo credit (second slide): Andy Colwell, Special to The Colorado Sun
Thank you to the for being one of the few media outlets to cover this important information.
