This marsh, on your left, has all the elements of a classic duck marsh. Its shallow waters teem with microscopic animal life. Plant growth is profuse above and below the water's surface. Graceful stands of bulrush and cattail are broken up in irregular fashion by expanses of open water. Marsh Unit I. Yet, hundreds of other wildlife species make this and other Refuge marshes their home.
Colonial nesting eared grebes, gather marsh plants to form floating nests.
Benton Lake was dependent solely on natural runoff in the Lake Creek Drainage. Often too little water was received to last throughout the summer resulting in poor conditions for waterfowl during critical periods of brood rearing and migration. A supplemental water source was obtained in 1957 from the Bureau of Reclamation in the form of return irrigation flows in Muddy Creek from the Greenfields Irrigation District. A Refuge pumping station on Muddy Creek and the associated delivery system were developed by the Fish and Wildlife Service and now provides water annually to Benton Lake. It is now possible to maintain optimum marsh conditions even in dry years.