Why does Illinois’ Department of Natural Resources claim the public has no right to 98% of waterways?

Illinois may lack high mountains, vast wilderness areas and grand national parks, but it ranks near the top of all states in the length of its rivers and streams — some 120,000 miles of them, according to the state Environmental Protection Agency. These rivers and their adjacent banks and floodplains supply essential habitat and migration corridors for wild animals and plants. They also provide expansive recreational opportunities for fishing, boating, swimming, tubing and the like. Or they would, if the state’s Department of Natural Resources did not wrongly claim that the public has no right to use nearly 98% of these waterways.

Not far from our office door in Champaign lies the source of the Embarras River, which flows southward for 195 miles, coursing through eight counties before emptying into the Wabash River. Early settlers used this river and others as corridors for travel, trade and fishing. In time, they enjoyed boating on it in places like Greenup in Cumberland County.

But according to the DNR, not one mile of the Embarras River is navigable and hence open to the public. The agency says much the same about tens of thousands of other river miles, including popular canoeing rivers such as the Middle Fork of the Vermilion just east of Champaign, the state’s only nationally designated scenic river. Users of these rivers, the agency asserts, do so only with the implied permission of neighboring landowners — permission that any landowner at any time could withdraw.

DNR’s legal stance contravenes federal law and clashes with the state’s public trust doctrine. Federal law includes a still-binding proviso of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 under which navigable rivers of Illinois “and the carrying places” between them are deemed “common highways and forever free.”

The federal navigation servitude similarly protects broad public access and fishing, notwithstanding any more restrictive state law. In combination, these bodies of law and related federal statutes vest the public with legal rights to use any waterway that is capable of supporting canoes or kayaks for any significant part of the year, even if such vessels must be portaged around obstacles or dragged over sandbars. These legal rights include fly fishing as well as boat fishing, swimming and tubing. (

For decades, DNR and many local law enforcement agencies have sided with landowners who want to keep the public far from their private lands. Indeed, the DNR recognizes public access rights in only 1,487 miles of inland waters, along with the bordering Mississippi, Ohio and Wabash Rivers. Champaign County is merely one of a contiguous block of some 30 counties that, according to DNR, feature not a single mile of public waters. Many other counties endure the same fate.

This legal stance is simply erroneous and needs to change. It’s particularly frustrating since the legislature has directed DNR, in no uncertain terms, to do exactly the opposite of what it is doing. The Illinois Rivers, Lakes, and Streams Act requires the DNR to ensure residents have the “fullest possible enjoyment” of Illinois waterways, free of “the slightest improper encroachment or invasion.” It goes further: “Every proper use which the people may make of the public rivers and streams and lakes of the State of Illinois shall be aided, assisted, encouraged and protected by the Department of Natural Resources.”

So frustrated have boaters and fishers become with DNR’s recalcitrance that they have pushed a bill in the Illinois House, introduced by state Rep. Janet Yang Rohr of Naperville, stating that residents shall enjoy the full range of waterways use rights currently provided by federal and state law. Astonishingly, DNR has opposed the bill, claiming it would interfere with private property rights and violate the Constitution.

To the contrary, the bill aims to protect property rights, those enjoyed by the public since before Illinois became a state — river access rights that take priority over rights held by owners of submerged riverbeds. DNR should be promoting this bill, not opposing it.

Abundant opportunities for outdoor recreation make a state much more attractive. And recreation is big business. A well-orchestrated plan to exploit Illinois waterways for fishing, boating and tubing could boost the economies of many rural areas, as Missouri and Wisconsin — among other states with broad access rights — well know. Riverfront homes are also more valuable when owners can push a canoe or bass boat into the river and navigate up and down it without fear of being arrested.

Illinois is blessed with abundant rivers. Many are small and slow-moving, but that makes them even more appealing to ordinary citizens not ready for the thrill of dangerous whitewater. They are home, too, to more wildlife than many realize, not just to fish and frogs but to otters, beaver, foxes, mink, eagles, osprey, herons, kingfishers, turtles, salamanders and mudpuppies. An afternoon or day on an Illinois river can be a special time. The Illinois DNR — with a nudge, if needed, from the governor’s office — can make such special times far more common.

Maggie Bruns is executive director of the Illinois-based, clean water and river advocacy nonprofit Prairie Rivers Network.

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