Bangor Township, on the bay shore

Bangor Charter Township is the shoreline township directly north and west of Bay City. Its centre sits about 4.3 miles from the middle of Bay City in a straight line, and its land runs up to Saginaw Bay, the Kawkawlin River and Bay City State Park, which the city gave to the state in 1922. The Census Gazetteer gives the township 14.1 square miles of land and 8.0 of water. It was organised on 22 March 1859 as the third township in Bay County, according to its own history page, and in 1868 its northern part was split off to form Kawkawlin Township.

Mostly postwar houses

The Census Bureau's 2020 to 2024 survey counts 6,789 housing units in the township with a median build year of 1969. The 1950s and 1970s were the two biggest decades, with 1,316 and 1,307 homes, and 4,824 homes, 71.1 percent, were standing before 1980. Only 709, about one in ten, date from 2000 or later. Single detached houses make up 73.9 percent of the stock, with 263 mobile homes that have no basement at all. Owners live in 72.7 percent of occupied homes, and the median owner occupied value is 170,200 dollars, well above Bay City's.

A postwar basement on this shore is usually block or poured concrete on a footing drain that empties into a sump. When the bay is high, that drain is sitting in water for months at a time, and the pump carries the whole load. Pits sized for a dry decade, pumps with no backup and discharge lines that freeze or drain back toward the house are the faults that show up first.

The high water years

Lake Huron, and Saginaw Bay with it, reached record levels in 2019 and 2020. Search summaries of Bay County releases describe the county and the Army Corps of Engineers handing out free sandbags in August 2019, about 40,000 of them, with the Bangor supervisor warning that the shoreline could turn from asset to peril. In 2020 the township board voted to ask the governor for a disaster declaration, and officials warned that a large inland area east of Bay City could flood as well. A 2022 reef feasibility study for the inner bay describes Bangor Township as troubled by flooding and sediment, with the Kawkawlin backing up when wind pushes the bay inland.

Flood water and seepage are different problems. If water came over the ground, the first call is to the township about the floodplain rules under Ordinance 233, which it adopted in 1996 under the National Flood Insurance Program. If the floor is wet with no surface flooding outside, that is groundwater, and a properly set up sump system or interior drain tile is the usual answer. Price ranges for both are on the cost page.

Permits at Township Hall

Township permit forms list Township Hall at 180 State Park Drive, with inspections on 989-684-5427 and the main office on 989-684-8931. The township publishes separate building, plumbing, electrical and mechanical permit forms, so a job that cuts the floor for a pit, adds a circuit for the pump and ties a discharge line outside can touch three of them. Ask the building official before the work is booked which of the forms your plan needs.

Nearby

Bay City, just south, publishes the clearest written rule in the area on replacing a buried drain, and Essexville, across the river mouth, deals with the same bay from the other bank.