(Above) An officer in an Illinois Conservation Police boat talks with a kayaker on the Chicago River on April 12. (Click on images to view larger versions.)

April 16, 2015 – Their police boats may be easy to miss but the Illinois Department of Natural Resources has added itself to the mix of law enforcement jurisdictions on the Chicago River.

Concerned about wakes caused by boats traveling too fast, the Chicago Harbor Safety Committee asked the IDNR and other agencies to increase their patrol of the river. Dave Olsen, a member of the committee and owner of Kayak Chicago, says the wakes are especially hazardous to kayakers.

“The idea was to help reduce the number of speeding boats and bring awareness that the Chicago River is a no-wake zone to protect the growing number of kayakers on the water.”

A boat belonging to Illinois Conservation Police, the law enforcement office of the IDNR, was on the river on Sunday. Officers did not limit their vigilance to boat wakes. They stopped guides for Kayak Chicago to see if their registrations were up to date.

“The kayakers were questioned a bit much for something that we are up to date with,” says Olsen, “but in the end they were free to go and continue paddling the river.”

(Above) Centennial Fountain, located in Streeterville’s McClurg Court, photographed in 2009 by Jyoti Srivastava.

Even if kayakers dodge the boat wakes, they can still be swamped by art on the Chicago River. In March, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago agreed to a Chicago Harbor Safety Committee request to reduce to five minutes the duration that an arc of water is shot across the river from Centennial Fountain. The date on which the new schedule takes effect has not yet been decided. There will also be an audible and visual alarm added to warn that the water cannon is about to activate.

The public information office of the IDNR did not respond to a request for information about the department’s increased presence on the Chicago River.