CityStories / City Profiles / Medium Cities / Hayward, California

The city, which is in the San Francisco Bay Area, is also home to the Eden Landing Ecological Reserve, a tidal wetlands area that is being cleaned up—to improve the wildlife habitat and add trails and viewing stations for public access—by a diverse coalition on the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project. Eden Landing is the first step of the project, with an organization called Save the Bay, with volunteers working on more than 600 acres. It is the largest tidal wetlands restoration project on the West Coast, restoring more than 15,000 acres of salt pond open space, after nearly 85 percent of the Bay Area's wetlands were destroyed by filling or other alterations.

Hayward's water supply is managed by the San Francisco Public Utility Commission, which is asking customers to reduce water use by 10 percent. A program offers rebates on low-flow toilets that can often cover the full cost of the toilet, and provides $200 rebates on residential high-efficiency clothes washers.