By Ariel Rubissow Okamoto, Bay Nature
“Not a very burly building” is the way planner Maggie Wenger describes the Hayward Shoreline Interpretive Center. It is a homey, roomy place crafted of wood and seasoned by bay fog and salt spray — the kind of structure you would imagine Roosevelt’s WPA crews might have built in a national park. It sits on short stilts right in the middle of an 1,800-acre marsh, as well as squarely in the memories of thousands of schoolchildren and other visitors who have come here to learn about the bay. The Hayward Shoreline is both a beloved open space on Alameda County’s heavily urbanized bayshore and one of the low-lying assets that planners like Wenger know are most at risk from sea-level rise. “It’s already in trouble,” she said. “When there’s a king tide or a storm event, their trails flood. And they can’t take kids on flooded trails. So it’s not just about the building. They need trails and they need marshes or they’re not going to have anything to interpret.”
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