Birch Bay County Park

Located on Birch Bay, Birch Bay State Park has camping and both saltwater and freshwater shorelines. It's a great place for crabbing and clamming (recreational license required for anyone over the age of 15). North of the park on Birch Bay, there are also opportunities for swimming, boating, bird watching, biking, and enjoying sand activities such as kite flying and building sand castles! For those who do want to swim, the water is best at the central part of the bay. It's much rockier in the south end by the state park. The park is open all year for camping and for those just looking for a day trip destination.

Get directions to this beach

COVID-19

Keep your distance from other people.

Practicing social distancing is essential right now. Follow the advice of the health experts. If your community has asked that you remain indoors and away from others, do so. Heading to the beach should only be considered an option if social distancing practices can be followed. Spending a day in any crowded place is the worst thing we can do for our most vulnerable right now and will counter the efforts to curb the virus’ spread.

For more information, please visit the World Health Organization public resource on COVID-19.

Water Quality

Passed water quality tests 60-95% of the time
Historical Status
This status is based on the latest sample, taken on August 24th, 2020. Puget Soundkeeper Alliance updates the status of this beach as soon as test results become available. These results were posted to Swim Guide on August 31st, 2020 at 11:29 AM.

For water quality icon legend, click:

Current Weather

12°C

A mix of sun and clouds

Report Pollution

Monitoring Frequency

Source Information

The Washington Department of Ecology BEACH program tests water quality at salt water swimming beaches every week from Memorial Day to Labor Day for enterococcus bacteria. During the sampling period, Puget Soundkeeper regularly updates the Swim Guide to reflect the most current information. The saltwater swimming criteria are in two parts:

The geometric mean* should not exceed 30 enterococci/100 mL, based on results from a minimum of five weekly samples and a maximum of 12 weekly samples. The statistical threshold value* should not exceed 110 enterococci/100 mL, based on results from a minimum of five weekly samples and a maximum of 12 weekly samples. If either of these criteria is exceeded, a beach advisory should be issued at the beach.

To protect swimmers' health, BEACH also uses a Beach Action Value. If enterococcus levels exceed 104 enterococci/100 mL, a beach advisory is issued.

A beach is marked green if it meets all of the above criteria.
A beach is marked red if it exceeds any one of the above criteria.
A beach is marked grey if no current data is available.

Sample results are also shared on the Department of Ecology BEACH program website: https://fortress.wa.gov/ecy/coastalatlas/Tools/BeachClosure.aspx

More information about sampling protocols is available here: http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/eap/beach/program.html

* The geometric mean and statistical threshold value concentrations are based on the arithmetic average of the three samples collected at a single beach for the day

Water Quality Graph