This week, on May 13th, marks the end of the 2026 legislative session in Colorado, and it comes without a bill to secure safe and lawful river passage in Colorado. American Whitewater, working with the Responsible River Recreation Alliance, has been advocating for river access legislation for the past year and a half and we aren’t giving up. The unsettled law around stream access in Colorado is a decades long fight, and we still need your help. We are building a movement of responsible recreationists and we have a fun way for you to join us today–enter to win this custom Badfish Hammer Paddle Cat with art from Jess Oatman.
We’ve built a huge supportive following and engaged with diverse stakeholders to find a reasonable path forward that protects private property while ensuring a single landowner can’t block the public from accessing miles of boatable rivers. Colorado’s laws on the public’s right to recreate on rivers are some of the most restrictive in the country, despite our booming outdoor recreation economy. The laws are unclear and leave the public at risk of losing access to the places we love to connect with.
The opposition claims that the status quo is in everyone’s best interest, that it’s the best way to ensure we can continue our rafting businesses and boating opportunities on rivers that flow through private property. But we have heard from dozens of members about hostile confrontations with landowners or new hazards like fences and low bridges being put up to block downstream passage. What we have now is an unstable handshake agreement. Riparian properties are being sold and subdivided all around the state and those new owners may be unaware of this unwritten truce. In the end, it is a “truce” that doesn’t have any legal standing.
The policy we are advocating for is focused and careful to allow responsible boaters to pass through private property on the water, touching the beds or banks of the river only when necessary to continue safe downstream movement. We are hoping to finally clarify the law that currently leaves all who enjoy paddling Colorado’s rivers at risk. We aren’t changing who owns the riverbed or opening up small backyard creeks to wade anglers. The goal is to ensure the places you love to paddle today are still accessible for future generations. With new polling data, we now know that the overwhelming majority of Colorado voters support instituting this type of legislation.
Colorado Voters Weigh in with Overwhelming Support
Just released polling data shows overwhelming support for policies that ensure safe and lawful passage on Colorado’s rivers, including the ability to float, scout, and portage around obstacles only when needed to safely move downstream. The polling, conducted by New Bridge Strategy, highlights broad agreement among Coloradans that clearer rules around floating on Colorado’s rivers are important to the economy and are needed to ensure safety for river users and protection for private landowners against liability for those recreating on rivers that flow through their property.
Key highlights from the polling include:
- 84% of Colorado voters support a policy that would allow people to float on rivers through private property, to make brief contact with the riverbed or riverbanks for safety – like going around obstacles, while ensuring that landowners have reasonable liability protections.
- 52% of Colorado voters say they would view their legislator more favorably if they voted in favor of clarifying Colorado law regarding recreation on rivers and creeks, while only 14% of voters said they would view their legislator less favorably.
- 92% of voters believe that river recreation is important to Colorado’s economy
- 88% of voters support protecting landowners by limiting the ability for people to sue them if they get hurt, unless the landowner acts recklessly.
- 82% support allowing “brief, necessary contact with riverbanks or bottoms for safety, like going around obstacles” even if the river beds or banks are private property.
See the whole polling results: Colorado Rivers Survey Key Findings
The Data: A Public-Private Data Analysis Reveals Colorado’s Rivers are at Great Risk of Privatization
The data on public river access in Colorado only makes this issue more urgent and demonstrates how vulnerable our public access to rivers is under current law. American Whitewater completed an analysis comparing our online river database in Colorado with public land data and we found that nearly all of Colorado’s whitewater opportunities at least partially run through private property. When we know that a single landowner can close off an entire river section, this is a big deal.
In our analysis, we found that:
- There are at least 3,353 floatable miles on 287 distinct recreational river segments of the 107,403 total river miles in Colorado.
- Only 9% of river recreation opportunities in Colorado are not at imminent risk of closure to the public. Of the 287 documented floatable river segments, a mere 26 flow entirely through public land.
- Of all estimated floatable miles, 1,656 miles (or 49%) run through private property. Meaning that nearly half of floatable river miles and 91% of segments face threats of river closures and conflicts.
The polling shows there is widespread support across Colorado and the data shows that our rivers face real risk of conflicts and closures. Yet our elected officials still failed to act. Just like the latest public land sell offs, this issue has pitted the wealthy few against regular people who rely on our rivers for their wellbeing and for an authentic connection to our beautiful outdoor spaces.
The difference is that when it comes to Colorado’s rivers, so far the wealthy have won. There was significant pushback from property interests wanting to maintain their ability to exclude the public from our most important public resource, our water. Despite bringing hundreds of voices to state legislators in support of safe and lawful river passage and having stakeholder discussions with nearly 300 entities, people with deep pockets paid people with loud voices to work against us at the state’s capital.
Fortunately, our efforts this session have resulted in a strong, durable coalition with reputable resources that demonstrate the need for clarity in Colorado’s river access laws before it’s too late. We are stronger than ever and we will continue to find a solution in the state legislature no matter what it takes. In the meantime, we will continue to monitor and advise on river access conflicts and we will continue to build support for safe and lawful river passage across Colorado. Getting this far is a milestone and we wouldn’t have been able to do it without your help writing and calling your legislators and donating to fund this work. The legislative session might be done, but our work is not and we need to ensure that our lawmakers keep hearing from us.
Keep Speaking Up
→ Please call your representative today. A personalized phone call is most impactful. If you just have a couple of minutes though, we’ve developed a quick and easy form letter that will go directly to your reps.
→ Report your river conflict experiences here. Reports of real conflicts with landowners are our most compelling tool to convince our elected officials that this is a real issue that needs to be solved before someone gets seriously hurt. Lack of data on river conflicts is one of our biggest weaknesses.
Keep Supporting Us
→ Follow @responsibleriverrecalliance on Instagram
→ Enter to win a customized Badfish Hammercat with art from Jess Oatman
→ Join the Responsible River Recreation Alliance to support and grow our voice
→ If you have the means, please consider making a donation to our Colorado Access Fund. It is not a secret that we are outmatched by the resources of the wealthy few opposed to our efforts and every dollar raised gets us closer to an even playing field.