The Paddler’s Access to Navigable Waters Act: Interview with House Sponsor Janet Yang Rohr

By Scott Hays, IPC president

Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Representative Janet Yang Rohr of Naperville, the lead sponsor for House Bill 1873, the Public Access to Navigable Waters Act which will give all paddlers the right to paddle all waterways in Illinois. A right we don’t currently have.

Thank you for taking time to talk to me and to the paddling community. So have you been out on any rivers lately? Where do you like to paddle?

I represent the Naperville area and the DuPage River runs right through the district and actually pretty close to my house.  Every summer, we usually get out there a few times. it’s nice and convenient. It’s really neat to me how we’re always on the bike trail or driving by it in our cars, but it’s a totally different world when you’re on the river. Just a few feet – 100 feet away – people are driving along, but in a kayak you’re just completely transported. That’s one of the things I’ve really liked about it.

And the DuPage is considered non-navigable by law, right?

Yeah, it is not on the list of Navigable Rivers.

So what brought the issue of paddler’s rights on Illinois rivers to your attention?

The issue came up a few years ago because there are some businesses that operate on the DuPage River in my district in the Naperville area and they were sending kayaks, canoes, and tube, like river tubers down the river.

And it was fine because they were launching from Naperville Park District property, but they would flow through into other areas down south on the river. And we had a homeowner who suddenly decided that they didn’t want people going through their property. I mean, it appeared to be sudden because this business had operated for years and people had been using this river for generations at this point.

Well, the river flows through their property and they were doing some pretty dangerous things like stringing barbed wire across the river, which is just not safe. So the question came up, do they have the right to do that?

For something that people have used for generations, for decades – to all of a sudden decide that it’s not for public use was a real problem.

And so the legislation that we introduced was trying to address this issue.

What does the bill do?

From a federal standpoint, rivers are for the public, this is already allowed. Water’s for the public and people can use these waterways to recreate, to canoe or paddle or whatever.

So the language reflects that and strengthens that federal directive. It essentially makes sure that rivers remain open to the public in a way that they have already been using it and just codifies that.

But it also protects people and their property rights. It specifies that you cannot get in and out of the river on someone else’s private property unless it’s for a safety issue. You can’t litter and pollute.

What is the biggest benefit of this bill?

Going on a river is such a great benefit to individuals to get closer to nature and this bill preserves that right. It’s something that people have always been doing, so that’s really important.

We have people who are going on the rivers who are being stopped by landowners, being cited by police. There is a lot of confusion going on because it’s just not clear what is and isn’t allowed. This bill will be very helpful in that we don’t have to get into these situations where homeowners are calling police. That is not a good situation for anyone.

What do you see as the biggest challenges to getting this bill passed in the General Assembly and ultimately signed by the governor?

Some of the concerns that we’ve tried to address with amendments to the language have been around property rights. The Department of Natural Resources, DNR lawyers are concerned that giving rights to people to float through their property on rivers is like taking property rights from them.

However, one of the biggest arguments in our favor is that when you look at how the land is parceled out and how property taxes are paid on this land, a lot of times the property tax is not assessed on the land underneath the river, the actual river bed. So that’s a pretty good indicator that although the property line may go into the river, is it really private property if taxes are not being collected on that portion of the land?

What kind of advice do you have for the paddling community and perhaps others to help support your efforts to get this bill passed?

The absolute most important thing that people can do is contact their state representative and state senator and make sure that they know that this is important to you. And it’s not only asking to support the bill and vote yes, it’s also ‘would you consider sponsoring this bill?’

When people have things they are willing to contact their legislators on, it’s a great signifier letting them know that this is something that they should vote yes on.

And the nice thing is there are people who use rivers all across the state so we can get representatives and senators from all across the state on this. And doing that will absolutely help with this bill.

Ultimately, I need people, 60 people that will vote yes on this bill.

What is the best means for people to contact their state Senator or Representative?

Well, every office kind of runs their office differently. For me and a lot of my colleagues, the basic ‘form letter’ e-mail is fine. It at least gives you a head count for who wants it and how many people want it. It’s always even better when you can personalize it a little.

I will say, a lot of times I get letters, emails from people that are not constituents in my District. I’d say that’s probably the least helpful, just blanketing the state, contacting as many legislators as you can.

I especially pay attention when it is my constituent in my district. And so that’s a good way to approach it: to open the e-mail with something like, I live in your district and I would like you to support this. I usually look up people to make sure they live in the district, but if they give me an address, that’s even easier for me.

Should people wait for the session to begin in January to contact their representatives?

Start now, the earlier the better. Contact the senator too because the senator understands that when it passes the House and goes over to the Senate, they’re asking for them to sponsor that version. People can put that in an e-mail to their Senator: ‘if this passes the House, would you consider sponsoring it at that point?’

That brings us to the end, so thank you, Representative Yang Rohr, we appreciate all your support and everything that you do.

And I thank you, too!

To track HB1873 online during the legislative session, go to https://ilga.gov/Legislation/BillStatus?DocNum=1873&GAID=18&DocTypeID=HB&LegId=159444&SessionID=114

Read this from the IPC about contacting your representative: https://illinoispaddling.org/co-sponsoring-hb1873-our-public-access-to-navigable-waters-bill/