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This story was produced by the Oregon Journalism Project, a nonprofit newsroom covering the state.
A trio of petitioners aims to repeal a new law that would require paddle-boarders and flatwater kayakers to pay state permit fees starting in January.
“I think it goes against our constitutional rights,” says Angela Epperson, a Hermiston resident who enjoys kayaking on the Columbia and Umatilla Rivers. “I just think they’ve gone too far.”
In the session that ended in late June, lawmakers expanded the Oregon State Marine Board’s permitting system and instituted new fees for a variety of watercraft, including standup paddleboards, kayaks and canoes.
House Bill 2982, which Gov. Tina Kotek has already signed into law, follows Senate Bill 47, which lawmakers passed in 2019. That bill established permit fees for nonmotorized boats longer than 10 feet.
The new law does away with the previous exemption for vessels under 10 feet long, so now all standup paddleboards and flatwater kayaks must have permits. (Whitewater kayaks are exempt in some cases.)
The fees for permitting the human-powered vessels, effective January 2026: $20 for a one- year permit or $35 for two years. The money from that new requirement and increased fees for motorboats and other watercraft, according the Marine Board, will be used for two purposes: to fight invasive species, including zebra and quagga mussels, which have been found in Washington and Idaho, and golden mussels, which were found in California last year; and to improve access for nonmotorized vessels.
It is unclear how many paddleboards and kayaks will be affected by the new law. Since December 2019, when the current permitting system went into effect, state agencies have sold nearly 400,000 “waterway access permits,” including for human-powered boats longer than 10 feet. The Marine Board gets no money from the state’s general fund or the Oregon Lottery, relying instead on permits and fees, including on the state’s roughly 150,000 motorboats.
The new fees on human-powered vessels less than 10 feet long drew an immediate response from three Oregonians, who filed a ballot initiative July 30 that “repeals law requiring permits to operate nonmotorized human-powered boats in Oregon waters.”
The chief petitioners are Epperson, Kari Goodheart of Irrigon in Morrow County, and Benjamin Roche of Albany.
Roche owns a paddleboard, two kayaks and a ski boat. He says he gets out on Foster Reservoir in Linn County and Dorena Lake in Lane County as often as he can, and acknowledges the need to keep invasive aquatic species out of Oregon waters.
But Roche says that work should focus on motorboats that have bilges—i.e., water collection and removal systems—because that’s where mussels are likely to be found.
Roche adds that he and other boaters are already paying permit and use fees to the Marine Board and parks, and the new fee on smaller human-powered vessels “is a bridge too far.”
“We have a constitutional right to access state waters,” Roche says. “I think this new law is less about fighting invasive species—which I fully support—than just another way to raise revenue.”
Roche says he met his two co-petitioners, Goodheart and Epperson, on social media. The three are in the process of forming a political action committee, which they plan to call the Oregon Constitutional Freedom Alliance.
The group needs to gather 1,000 valid voter signatures in order to start the ballot title process. If they clear that hurdle, they will then need to gather 117,173 valid signatures to qualify for the November 2026 ballot.
