Bay City State Park (previously Bay City State Recreation Area) is a

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural ...

located on the shore of

Saginaw Bay Saginaw Bay is a bay within Lake Huron located on the eastern side of the U.S. state of Michigan. It forms the space between Michigan's Thumb region and the rest of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Saginaw Bay is in area. It is located in part ...

near Bay City in

Bay County Bay County is the name of three counties: * Bay County, Florida, United States * Bay County, Michigan, United States * Baicheng County Baicheng County () as the official romanized name, also transliterated from Uyghur as Bay County (pronounced l ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

, United States. The

Tobico Marsh Tobico Marsh, located just north of Bay City, Michigan, is part of the Bay City Recreation Area. Tobico Marsh was designated as a registered National Natural Landmark in 1976 because of its large size, relatively undisturbed condition and variety ...

, one of the largest remaining freshwater, coastal wetlands on the Great Lakes is located in the park. Other natural features of the park include a mile of sandy beach, over of

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

woods, meadows,

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

savannah prairies, and

cattail ''Typha'' is a genus of about 30 species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Typhaceae. These plants have a variety of common names, in British English as bulrush or reedmace, in American English as reed, cattail, or punks, in A ...

marshes. The park is a haven for migratory birds and wetland wildlife.

History

The park saw its inception in 1922, when the Michigan Conservation Commission accepted from Bay City a tract of land on the shore of Saginaw Bay with the proviso that the site become a state park. From 1923 until 1994, it was known as Bay City State Park. In 1994, when some termed the

were added to the park, the park took on the name of Bay City State Recreation Area, a move that confused both the populace and the media who continued to refer to by its original name. The name Bay City State Park was restored in 2017.

Activities and amenities

The park offers swimming, spray park, trails for hiking, biking and cross-country skiing, picnicking areas, playground, and camping. Park activities include fishing, hunting and trapping as well as wildlife viewing from observation towers, boardwalks, viewing platforms, and shoreline spotting scopes. The park's Saginaw Bay Visitor Center includes an exhibit hall with interactive natural history displays, 100-seat auditorium, and year-round environmental education programs.

Beach pollution

Pollution on the beaches bordering the

consisting of organic matter has been a significant issue to park patrons and local waterfront land owners in recent years. Although beach grooming has been implemented to clean up the beaches, much of the

shore A shore or a shoreline is the fringe of land at the edge of a large body of water, such as an ocean, sea, or lake. In physical oceanography, a shore is the wider fringe that is geologically modified by the action of the body of water past a ...

line along the bay is muddied with muck. Much of the pollution found along the bay shore has been attributed to waste runoff from local farms settled within the

Saginaw River The Saginaw River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed November 7, 2011 river in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is formed by the confluence of the Tittabawassee and Sh ...

watershed, wastewater treatment failures, and leaking

septic systems A septic tank is an underground chamber made of concrete, fiberglass, or plastic through which domestic wastewater (sewage) flows for basic sewage treatment. Settling and anaerobic digestion processes reduce solids and organics, but the treatme ...

, which contribute nutrients into the water, causing algae blooms.

References

External links

Bay City State Park
Michigan Department of Natural Resources
Bay City State Park Map
Michigan Department of Natural Resources
U.S. Geological Survey Map
at the U.S. Geological Survey Map Website. Retrieved December 5th, 2022. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bay City State parks of Michigan Nature centers in Michigan Saginaw Bay Protected areas of Bay County, Michigan Protected areas established in 1922