www.mybaycity.com August 20, 2011
Outdoors Article 6193


Wenona Beach Pier, with Casino at right and Wright's Cafe, left, in background. (Photo courtesy J.R. Watson, from his book "Wenona Beach."

Task Force Seeks to Re-Establish Pier, Restaurant on Saginaw Bay

Lake Huron Basin Community Meeting Set Tuesday at Wirt Library

August 20, 2011
By: Dave Rogers


Shades of the old Wenona Beach!

Finally, after nearly half a century, the entertainment tradition of the casino and amusement park may be revived, with modern overtones like handicapped access.

Officials of the Saginaw Bay Coastal Initiative (SBCI) have scheduled a series meetings in this area to get public input and cooperation to enhance tourism and make enviriomental improvements on Saginaw Bay.

First meeting is Tuesday, Aug. 23 9-11 a.m. in the Alice and Jack Wirt Public Library community meeting room, 500 Center Ave., Bay City, sponsored by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Another meeting is slated the same day, 2:30-4:30 p.m. in the Grace A. Dow Memorial Library lounge, 1710 W. St. Andrews St., Midland, with a focus on Midland County issues.

On Aug. 24, a meeting will be held 9-11 a.m. at the Port Austin Visitor's Center, 17W. State St., Port Austin, to focus on Huron and Tuscola counties. From 2:30-4:30 p.m., a meeting will be held in the Bark Shanty Community Center, 20 N. Ridge St., Port Sanilac, to focus on Sanilac and St. Clair Counties.

A SBCI meeting is scheduled September 1st at the Pere Marquette depot in Bay City at 1 p.m. U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow will be attending along with Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) Chief David White.

Focus of the meetings is the Western Lake Huron Basin (WLHB) Project Area that includes the 14 coastal counties in Michigan. This is an 8,700 square mile area with two areas of concern identified: 1-Saginaw River/Saginaw Bay; and 2-the St. Marys River at the Soo.

Problems in this area include polluted stormwater runoff, combined sewer overflows, habitat loss and natural drainage modifications, according to the Corps.

The Wenona Beach Casino and Amusement Park closed up in the mid-1960s to make way for a mobile home park. In 1969, the decrepit jackrabbit and the crumbling casino were burned by the Bangor Township Fire Department.

Since then nostalgic oldtimers have wondered how folks can have more access to the bay and perhaps enjoy dining and entertainment along the shore.

Improvement of access to the bay for tourism is only part of the mission of the project taskforce.

"The Corps of Engineers indicate they want public input on what we see as the priority problem areas and needs for Saginaw Bay," said Laura Ogar, Bay County Environmental Affairs and Community Development Director. "We have done a lot of this work to identify priority issues through the Saginaw Bay Coastal Initiative (SBCI), through the small Workgroup efforts as well as info sharing during the larger regional meetings 1-2 times a year."

According to Ms. Ogar, the greatest problem areas continue to be:

1.) Impaired beach quality;

A) beach closings due to bacteria - so we need funding for strategic source investigations and source control, keeping in mind the SBCI Combined Sewage Overflow Workgroup reviewed the data from CSO discharges and we have been able to rule out CSO's as major sources of bacteria.

B) People avoiding the beach due to heavy accumulations of muck and its associated health and safety and odors problem - so we need funding to focus on muck removal on the beaches and in the nearshore swimming zone.

C) Phragmites - the invasive weed growing 12 feet tall that blocks visual access to the bay, takes over and destroys wildlife/waterfowl habitat, and chokes off physical access to the bay- so we need funding support for treatment and control of dense stands of this invasive weed.

2) Inadequate access points to the bay;

A) We have no restaurant or bay-front pier for sitting, viewing or fishing on the bay, no handicapped access to the shoreline in our 37 miles of shoreline, so we need funding to re-establish the Wenona Park bay-front park and public promenade with a bay-front restaurant within close proximity to the Bay City urbanized area.

B) We have inadequate public access points, and we need funding to help develop the limited sites we have and for additional sites.

Enhancement and coordination of state and local tourism efforts is tasked to a new non-profit organization, MI Great Bay, Inc.

Workgroups have been formed to review alternative algae control options at the Bay City State Recreation Area, for phragmities control and for development of a Kawkawlin River restoration plan. Citizens also are working on a Cass River restoration plan.

More information is available from Ms. Ogar at ogarl@baycounty.net, 989-895-4135. ###

0202 nd 04-28-2024

Designed at OJ Advertising, Inc. (V3) (v3) Software by Mid-Michigan Computer Consultants
Bay City, Michigan USA
All Photographs and Content Copyright © 1998 - 2024 by OJA/MMCC. They may be used by permission only.
P3V3-0200 (1) 0   ID:Default   UserID:Default   Type:reader   R:x   PubID:mbC   NewspaperID:noPaperID
  pid:1560   pd:11-18-2012   nd:2024-04-28   ax:2024-05-02   Site:5   ArticleID:6193   MaxA: 999999   MaxAA: 999999
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)