San Francisco Bay lost most of its tidal marsh a long time ago to salt ponds, levees and fill, and bringing it back has been the patient work of decades. On 22 September the United States Environmental Protection Agency announced the largest single investment it has ever made in the bay and the creeks that feed it: more than eighty two million dollars, split across twenty projects. Mike Martucci, who heads the agency's Pacific Southwest region, made the announcement. What lifts this above a number is how ordinary and reachable most of the list is.

Marin Audubon Society has five million to restore four acres of tidal marsh along the Marin shoreline and build a two acre cobble beach in front of it, so the marsh has something soft to hide behind when the water rises. East Bay Regional Park District has five million for Hayward Marsh, including twelve hundred feet of living shoreline, which means plants and oyster reef and gentle slopes doing the work a concrete wall used to do badly. Solano Land Trust has just under four million to let the tide back into eighty acres at Rush Ranch and to open the place up to more visitors while it does. State Coastal Conservancy has three million to reconnect two hundred and seventy five acres of former salt pond, Pond A1, to the bay. Trout Unlimited has 1.29 million to take a barrier out of the Petaluma River so steelhead and chinook can swim through again. Marshes you can stand beside, and fish that can get home.

Our short take: figures from the United States Environmental Protection Agency news release (22 September 2026). Photograph: to be chosen, three options on the photo page. Read the full story: EPA awards record 82 million dollars to improve water quality and restore habitat across San Francisco Bay watersheds, US EPA | https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-awards-record-82-million-improve-water-quality-and-restore-habitat-across-san