Scenic Rivers Bill goes to Governor’s desk

Ohio’s Wild, Scenic, and Recreational Rivers Program will soon see some changes under Senate Bill 156, recently passed by the Ohio General Assembly.  The legislature forwarded those changes to the governor on July 16.  Governor DeWine is expected to sign the bill, which had unusually high non-partisan support with only one legislator voting against the measure.

The legislature’s focus on the Wild, Scenic, and Recreational Rivers Program began with concerns from owners of private land that abuts watercourses designated under the program as wild, scenic, or recreational. Ohio currently has 15 designated watercourses comprising 27 stream segments and just over 830 river miles.  Many of the designated watercourses are along agricultural lands.

Those landowner concerns initiated a program review and led to the revisions enacted by the legislature in S.B. 156, which makes the following changes.

• Transfers the authority to administer the program from the Division of Parks and Watercraft to the Division of Natural Areas and Preserves (DNAP) in the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR).
• Narrows DNAP’s scope of authority to the watercourses that are designated as wild, scenic, and recreational rivers, rather than to wild, scenic, and recreational river “areas” as under the current law.
• States that a watercourse designation does not affect private property rights or authorize the Director of Natural Resources, DNAP Chief, or any governmental agency or political subdivision to restrict the use of private land adjacent to a designated river.
• States that the law does not give any right to the above parties to enter upon private land.
• Expands the types of watercourses subject to designation as a wild, scenic, or recreational river to include the headwaters of those rivers.
• Requires DNAP to perform certain duties regarding publicly owned land along a designated river, including both of the following:
  • To adopt rules governing the use, visitation, and protection of scenic river lands and other specified publicly owned lands administered by DNAP within the watersheds of wild, scenic, and recreational rivers; and
  • To establish facilities and improvements within the system of wild, scenic, and recreational rivers, scenic river lands, and other specified publicly owned lands that are necessary for their visitation, use, restoration, and protection and that do not impair their natural character.
• Requires the DNAP Chief to adopt rules establishing fees and charges for the use of facilities in nature preserves, scenic river lands, and on publicly owned lands.
• Clarifies that certain public entities must obtain approval from the ODNR Director if specified construction activities are performed within 1,000 feet of a wild, scenic, or recreational river.
• Requires the ODNR Director to post the intention to declare a watercourse as a wild, scenic, or recreational river on DNAP’s website.
• Allows the DNAP Chief to accept, receive, and expend gifts, devises, or bequests of money, land, or other properties for purposes of the wild, scenic, and recreational river program.

Learn more about S.B. 156 on the Ohio legislature’s website.  Information on Ohio’s Scenic Rivers Program is on ODNR’s website.