A Kansas bill could punish homeless people and make kayaking a crime. To hell with that.
A kayaker in 2016 on the Arkansas River near Great Bend. (Photo by Max McCoy/Kansas Reflector)
The Kansas House bill shepherded by Rep. Bob Lewis is a stunningly shameful piece of legislation.
Ostensibly written to help local authorities deal with homeless encampments and trash dumping on the dry bed of the Arkansas River in western Kansas, it is both cruel and capricious. Not only would it give counties along the state’s three major rivers the power to control access and subject violators to criminal trespass, it would also grant local officials unlimited authority to designate what activities are allowed in the river channels.
Lewis, a Republican from Garden City, introduced the bill to the House Local Government Committee. He and a proponent, Finney County Commission Chair Vicki Germann, said the proposed legislation came from years of frustration in dealing with homeless encampments in the dry bed.
For decades, the state’s three navigable rivers — the Kansas, the Missouri and the Arkansas — have been designated as public corridors. In the eastern half of the state, that means anglers, paddlers, and other outdoor enthusiasts can ply the rivers without asking permission from any local authority or landowners who own the banks. Out west, where climate change and excessive irrigation have drained the Arkansas to a dry bed, that means hikers, horseback riders, and ATV drivers can roam at will.
But House Bill 2495 would change state law to authorize counties to turn the river channels into criminal trespass zones. At a Feb. 4 hearing of the House Local Government Committee, Lewis said the bill would enhance public safety in the river channels. Written testimony submitted in advance of the hearing was overwhelming against the bill, by 75 to 7. Opponents ranged from the Kansas Sierra Club, environmental groups and homelessness outreach organizations to private citizens. Supporters included the Kansas Livestock Association and Finney County Economic Development.
Lewis portrayed the dry river bed near Garden City as a lawless place where local cops didn’t have the authority to enforce the law in makeshift, barbed wire-enclosed homeless camps rampant with drug dealing, unregulated businesses, and unsanitary conditions.
“They were urinating in places they shouldn’t be,” Lewis said of the campers.
The squatters disturbed the peace and safety of the “lonely hiker or lonesome cowboy” wanting to use the riverbed, he said, and had caused home values on the banks to drop. The local sheriff didn’t have the jurisdiction to go in and find a solution, he claimed, because navigable waters are controlled by the state, and the state didn’t have the resources to deal with the problem. A grassroots organization, the Unmet Needs Community Led Empowerment initiative — just remember this as UNCLE — was formed to work with local officials and had helped with river clean-up and homeless outreach.
Opponents of the bill, however, countered that local law enforcement had statutory authority to deal with crime in the river channel. The refrain of the many opposing voices was that the bill was the wrong tool for the job. Not only would it give individual counties the authority to criminalize the homeless, but it could make paddling and other outdoor activities a matter of criminal trespass, a misdemeanor punishable by 48 hours in jail. Homeless advocates also said the UNCLE initiative had only asked for professional help in relocating and aiding campers late in the game.
The three navigable rivers “are open to the public between the ordinary high water marks on each bank,” according to a guide by the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. “This is the line that can been seen where high water has left debris, sand, and gravel during its ordinary annual cycles. When these rivers flow through private land, permission is needed from adjacent landowners to access the rivers as well as when picnicking, camping, portaging or engaging in any other activity.”
As long as you stay in the channel, however, all of this is allowed. On a sandbar you can camp, picnic, and otherwise play to your heart’s content. Some of my most memorable moments during a paddling journey, as described in my book “Elevations,” were camping on a sandbar in the Arkansas River one beautiful weekend in early November.
But the Wildlife and Parks guide dryly notes that “other waters are privately owned.” Yes, all other rivers in Kansas — the non-navigable ones — are off-limits to those who don’t have permission of the landowners on the banks. This ban on public recreational use of most rivers followed a protracted legal case that began in 1988 when a landowner stretched a fence across Shoal Creek in southeast Kansas to stop paddlers. In 1990, the Kansas Supreme Court said the public has no recreational right to nonnavigable waters over private land.
An aside: You might wonder why the Arkansas River in western Kansas, although a dry bed, is still listed as a “navigable” river when it hasn’t had reliable water since the 1970s. The short answer is that it was once capable of commerce under federal law, and the designation remains.
“I think it’s very important that we keep public access to these waterways,” said Dawn Buehler, executive director of the Friends of the Kaw, a protection and advocacy group for the Kansas River. “Kansas already has limited access to public land or public rivers. … Allowing each county to regulate the same river could result in inconsistent rules.”
Buehler told the committee that the Friends of the Kaw holds regular river cleanups, removing trash and other debris, and that the river volunteers are often the first to spot the kind of problems Lewis was referring to. When they call 911, Buehler said, it is local agencies, including the Eudora and Topeka fire departments, that respond. There is no jurisdictional problem because the rivers are controlled by the state.
“These rivers belong to the people of the state of Kansas,” she said, “so let’s make sure the law reflects that.”
Other river advocates and environmentalists spoke or delivered written testimony, and their remarks mirrored Buehler’s.
Jeff Hancock, of Kansas Outdoor Heritage Alliance, said if the bill were to become law Kansas would be the only state to manage its navigable waters in such a way. The alliance, he said, is composed of anglers, hunters, trappers, and “houndsmen.” He said the navigable rivers represent “the last vestiges of public land (in Kansas) available to anyone, at any time.”
Kansas is infamously at or near the bottom of the list of states having public land. The three navigable rivers represent the longest public corridors in the state. In 2016, the Arkansas River was named a National Water Trail, at least for the 192 wet miles from Great Bend to the Oklahoma state line. Upon questioning, Lewis told the committee he didn’t know how or if that designation would impact how counties could control access under the proposed law.
Rep. Bob Lewis, R-Garden City, sits at his desk during a Jan. 28, 2026, session of the House. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
In addition to those who expressed concern about recreational access, there were also opponents who were alarmed that the proposed legislation could result in sweeping homeless camps.
“I’m basically here to remind you of your moral obligation to care for the poor,” said Rabbi Moti Rieber of Kansas Interfaith Action. “We oppose any bill that would criminalize homelessness.”
Rieber also said he was afraid a statewide “general encampment ban” would be stuffed into the bill.
Other advocates for the unhoused said such sweeps are proven not to work and that 90% of those targeted remain unhoused, but at different locations, in the area. Still others pointed out that there wasn’t a single homeless shelter in Garden City — or in that part of western Kansas — which made the consequences dire for those who were charged with trespassing and their shelters destroyed.
“Homelessness is a housing problem and no amount of criminalization … will provide access to safe and affordable housing,” said Molly Mendenhall, of the Kansas Statewide Homeless Coalition.
Christine English-Baird, an opponent who offered testimony remotely, said she had first-hand knowledge of the problem.
“I’ve slept along riverbanks,” she said of a time in her life when she was homeless. “I was criminalized, and once I got out of jail, I had no place to go.”
She said she opposed the bill because it would make criminals of people who were just trying to survive.
Such pleas are unlikely to persuade Lewis, who has consistently displayed a lack of compassion for anybody but the privileged or politically hard right. He worries that Kansas universities are indoctrinating students in diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory and was behind a rushed bill, passed recently, to make people use the bathroom that matches their biological sex at birth.
The bill Lewis introduced to give counties the authority to charge people with criminal trespass on the state’s navigable rivers is a shocking power grab disguised as a remedy for a community problem. Lewis, a lawyer, must know that local law enforcement has the authority to deal with crimes in the dry bed of the Arkansas at Garden City. A 2009 shooting took place on the dry bed at Dodge City and local authorities were unimpeded by jurisdictional challenges in their investigation. What Lewis is really attempting is not to give local police more power but to create a new category of crime to pursue — sandbar camping trespass.
The difference between a sandbar trespasser and a lonely hiker or a lonesome cowboy is not just the length of their stay, but the amount of money in their pockets. Hikers and cowboys also need to answer the call of nature, but Lewis seemed unconcerned about where they do their business. As someone who has kayaked or walked or otherwise traversed the length of the Arkansas River in Kansas, I can tell you that rest areas become any tree or bush that lends a modicum of privacy. Also, most of the trash in river beds comes not from the homeless but from decades of use as free dumping grounds for city residents and businesses.
If given the choice, there isn’t a county in western Kansas where the Arkansas once flowed that wouldn’t jump on the chance to control areas they consider nuisances at best. Many Kansans haven’t seen these channels because, frankly, they are hidden by the infrastructure that has grown up around them. Bridges and railing and fencing and power lines and all the other industrial tendons of modern living hide the dry sand from most people. But when you take a look at what’s under the bridges and behind the fences, in Dodge City and other places, you see a kind of militarized zone. Sometimes there are actual barricades to keep people out.
This isn’t just a western Kansas problem but a moral problem our state has failed to address.
For decades, our major rivers have been forgotten places, fit only as dumping grounds for industrial waste and as the last refuge of the down and out. But organizations like the Friends of the Kaw have worked hard to clean up our rivers, encourage access points for paddlers, and create partnerships with local governments. They are working on behalf of all Kansans to preserve one of our most precious natural resources.
But if Lewis has his way, the work of such environmental activists would be at the whim of county officials along each stretch of river. No more paddling or camping on sand bars without county permission. Sure, some local leaders would do the right thing, which means hands off. But others? They won’t be able to resist punishing the homeless and teaching all the tree-hugging, kayak-paddling nature lovers a lesson.
The river bill is not just bad policy. It’s a craven attempt to hand counties the ability to control the state’s rivers with zero obligation to care for them. The fact that it punishes both hippies and the homeless is a bonus for those like Lewis, who seems unconcerned about the welfare of our state’s poor but is oddly obsessed with where they urinate.
If we’re lucky, we’ve heard the last of this regressive bill. If not, it will come back late in the session stuffed in some unrelated piece of legislation to hide it from its many critics. To paraphrase the late Edward Abbey, lonely hikers and lonesome cowboys — and the rest of us who love rivers and care about the poor — should spit on this nonsense from a considerable height.
Max McCoy is an award-winning author and journalist. Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.