IPC: Making Illinois Rivers Legally Accessible to Paddlers

Again this year, the paddler’s advocacy community will be working with the Illinois legislature to pass legislation correcting the Illinois Department of Natural Resources’ erroneous interpretation of water law. This interpretation designates 98% of Illinois’s waterways as the private property of landowners who own the land along the rivers’ banks. This is in blatant violation of established federal law going back to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, and yet it persists. By classifying most of our waterways as “non-navigable” (which is particularly ironic to all of us who regularly paddle such “non-navigable” waterways), IDNR has ruled that paddlers need landowner permission to paddle most of our waterways or risk a trespass violation. As in the recent Illinois Supreme Court case of Holm v. Kodat (read more HERE), any current disputes will likely be resolved to support landowner claims and not the paddler until our law is changed.

Last year and in 2022, Illinois House Representative Janet Yang-Rohr (D-Naperville), introduced HB 4708 which creates a simple amendment to our existing law to make it clear that “any segment of a lake, river, or stream that is capable of supporting use by commercial or recreational watercraft for a substantial part of the year, or that is actually so used, shall be deemed navigable, and shall be open to public access and use.” See the bill HERE

The newly formed Advocacy Committee of the Illinois Paddling Council will plan strategy to help our bill navigate its own course through the twisted paths of the Illinois General Assembly. We are ably assisted by the Illinois Environmental Council and Prairie Rivers Network, both of whom have passage of this bill high on their own legislative agenda for the year.

Stay tuned for more developments and how you can help pass this critical, common-sense legislation which is already in place in ALL neighboring states (see THIS IPC blog post from the Spring).