GREEN BAY – After six years of inadequate funding and record-breaking high water, Bay Beach could finally see swimmers on its shores by summer 2023.
Photographs from 1930s and ’40s capture children jumping into the bay, all while a harmful tar-like material from gas plants along the East and Fox rivers discharged into Green Bay and Lake Michigan. The contaminants were so noxious, the city of Green Bay shuttered the beach in 1945.
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After the EPA classified Fox River a superfund site filled with 14 million yards of contaminated sediments, it seemed impossible that Bay Beach would ever be swimmable again.
Progress has been slow but nonetheless moving.
Since 2015, the city, with the assistance of feasibility studies and federally funded water studies, has pushed to open Bay Beach back up for swimming. But even after the city raised $5 million in bonds under former Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt, inadequate funding and record-high waters rendered engineering moot.
Now, after reevaluating financial and phasing plans at a park committee meeting last year, with water levels more than one foot down from where they were last year, and a pending $3.5 million “mother grant” that would cover both phases of redevelopment, Bay Beach construction could begin as early as this fall.
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“Like any large-scale development project, there have been a lot of twists and turns, but I’m confident in saying that, within a couple of years, we’re gonna see people swimming on Bay Beach,” said Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich.
Dan Ditscheit, the director of Green Bay’s Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department, explained that under Schmitt, a proposed budget of $7 million would all but ensure Bay Beach’s reopening. The $7 million was to be made up of $5 million in bonds, $1 million in grants and an additional $1 million raised in private donations by Schmitt.
Neither the city nor Schmidt met their goal, but “it got a good start to it,” Ditscheit said.
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With a new mayor in charge, a parks committee meeting last fall reexamined the financing plan and divided redevelopment into two project phases. In the works is a 1,000-foot-long sand swimming beach, a 400- to 450-foot wildlife viewing platform (sometimes referred to as the pier), a bathhouse with a concession stand, as well as converting the shoreline walk to a boardwalk and removing the roughed up asphalt there.
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Stormwater management must also take precedence. Crystal von Holdt, a water management specialist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, has been in discussions about Bay Beach with the city since 2015. The permit, issued by the DNR in 2018, stipulates that Bay Beach must have proper water monitoring in place.
Schmitt recognized early in those redevelopment conversations the need to ensure water safety for the public, he said last week.
“Part of our permit, and I agreed to it, is that we test water quality every day to make sure we have a safe place to swim, but there will be times — and we were honest with the public — that (swimming portion of) the beach would be closed,” Schmitt said.
The current mayor shares this mindset, but emphasized, too, that regular testing has determined the bay is now safe to swim in.
“A lot of people are aware that blue algae crops up (in the water) especially at the end of our summers. It’s something that we’ll want to watch out for and be vigilant about,” Genrich said.
Additionally, according to the permit, construction must not adversely impact the environment, from fish and wildlife habitat to water quality, von Holdt wrote in an email.
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Because high waters paused progress on redevelopment, the permit, which expires after a three-year timeframe, had to be extended. This required additional legwork, but an extension was granted in early 2021, according to von Holdt.
City officials across the board are optimistic that the reopening of Bay Beach will be a boon to Green Bay’s economy.
Schmitt thinks that out-of-towners coming to Lambeau Field would be more inclined to add an extra day or two to their trip were there such a sunny amenity at Bay Beach in addition to the neighboring wildlife sanctuary and amusement park.
“I think that people are going to really look at us. And we’re going to get the credit we deserve as being a very attractive, choice area to be more for tourism — and the locals will embrace it and will be very proud of another great amenity,” Schmitt said.
James Andersen, the assistant director of Green Bay’s Parks, Recreation & Forestry Department, was quick to agree. “It’s going to be so awesome for our community — everything from Bay Beach to the economy will benefit,” he said.
Bay Beach Amusement Park is one of the oldest municipal amusement parks in the country. Since its opening 125 years ago, the scope of the land has evolved, from the wildlife sanctuary to the amusement park, and now, a new and improved swimming beach.
It would have been tempting to sell this area, with its breathtaking scenic views, to developers for the purposes of condos and housing, but Schmitt envisioned something else that could appeal to far more people: a free and accessible public beach.
“A lot of parks have gone through the way of development to create a tax base. It would have been the easy thing to do but it wouldn’t be the right thing to do,” Schmitt said.
Genrich echoed this and hopes that, by virtue of Green Bay residents having a swimming beach, residents and tourists alike will turn their attention back to keeping the waters of the bay clean for future generations.
“It’s a multi-decade reorientation of ourselves toward the natural resources of the Fox River and the bay of Green Bay, which is the largest freshwater estuary in the literal world,” Genrich said. “We turned our backs from the river for a long time, but I think this project is an indication of us finding our balance.”
Natalie Eilbert is a government watchdog reporter for the Green Bay Press-Gazette. You can reach her at [email protected] or view her Twitter profile at @natalie_eilbert.
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