The Grand Traverse Bay watershed is in northwest Michigan’s lower peninsula and drains approximately 976 square miles of land. The watershed covers major portions of Antrim, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska, and Leelanau counties, encompassing 55 townships and municipalities. The largest municipality in the watershed is the City of Traverse City. Other towns and villages in the watershed include Northport, Suttons Bay, Kingsley, Acme, Kalkaska, Mancelona, Bellaire, and Elk Rapids.

The watershed may be broken up into nine distinctive major drainage basins, referred to as subwatersheds. These subwatersheds are the Elk River Chain of Lakes, Boardman River, Mitchell Creek, Acme Creek, Tobeco Creek, Yuba Creek, east bay shoreline and tributaries, west bay shoreline and tributaries, and the Old Mission Peninsula.

Grand Traverse Bay stretches along 132 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline, spans 10 miles at its widest point, stretches a lengthy 32 miles to its base in Traverse City, and is 590 feet at its deepest point. The bay is divided into western and eastern arms by a peninsula that extends northward approximately 18 miles. Overall, the prevailing opinion among experts is that the water quality in Grand Traverse Bay is excellent. Grand Traverse Bay is one of the few remaining high-quality embayments in the Great Lakes and arguably has the highest water quality of the larger Lake Michigan bays.

The Grand Traverse Bay watershed is one of the premier tourist and outdoor recreation regions in Michigan and is home to more than 150,000 people. Its natural resource base and beauty contributes significantly to the quality of life enjoyed by seasonal and year-round residents accounting for the area’s continued growth and prosperity. The Grand Traverse Bay region is currently experiencing tremendous population growth and development pressure, demonstrated by an average 34% increase in population growth in the four major counties encompassing the watershed in the last 50 years alone.