Believe it or not, fishing on the Riverside side of the river is going to become an issue that needs to be dealt with.
Years ago, the Desplaines was a sewer. However, over the past 15 years or so, it has undergone a remarkable transformation. A huge amount of credit for this can be given to an orgnization called--if memory serves--the Hoffman Dam River Rats. I don't know if they are still active, but they worked hard on cleaning the banks, drawing DNR attention to the river and promoting it as a viable sports fishery. I also believe that many of the most active members of this organization were (or are) RIverside residents.
Of course, with the improvement in the fishery came fishermen. As Catherine points out, one can fish on the Riverside Lawn and Lyons side, or wade in the water. However, an awful lot of folks are fishing on the Riverside side. I'm not sure about my feelings on this. On the one hand, I like to promote recreational activities like fishing. I enjoy it myself, and plan on tying some minnow patterns and hitting the area behind the library (in the water) with my fly rod this fall. However, a minority of fisherman leave trash and spend more time drinking than fishing. THere's also a significant monority of people who keep everything they catch, which can deplete a fishery in short order. Regardless, I don't think this issue is going away, and the VIllage needs to decide if it has the ability and will to enforce the restrictions or if we seek a middle ground.