Bob Kent, former manager of the Columbia Basin project for the state of Washington, walks through an area of the native shrub steppe sage brush environment in the Columbia Basin project area near Moses Lake, Washington.
The sage and other plants of the shrub steppe habitat support a variety of creatures, including lady bugs that feed on aphids.
Bob Peterson uses the Glen Williams Boat Launch at the mouth of Lind Coulee Wasteway, where irrigation water runoff returns to the system in Potholes Reservoir.
Bob Kent pulls the heads off a patch of the invasive grass, phragmites, which fills in around the edge of wetland areas.
Egrets and gulls fish in the Crab Creek arm of Potholes Reservoir near Moses Lake.
Egrets settle on a small island in the Crab Creek arm of Potholes Reservoir.
A buck moves along the shoreline in the Crab Creek section of Potholes Reservoir, while ducks swim in the pond behind it.
Bob Kent inspects an area where purple loosestrife used to thrive. The late-season red leaves show the marsh-destroying invasive plant isn’t totally eradicated, but it has been beaten back since Kent led a fight against it when he was wildlife manager.
“Ducks skim low over the waters of the Crab Creek arm of Potholes Reservoir at sunrise.
Lee Williams (left) and Bob Kent check seeds from plants growing in a shrub steppe wildlife buffer that Williams maintains at the edge of his irrigated alfalfa field. Behind them are some of the ponds that form the Lind Coulee Wasteway for returning irrigation water.
Bob Kent walks through one of Lee Williams’s irrigated fields adjacent to the shrub steppe landscape.
