The Coos Watershed Association wants to take a snapshot of the condition of the Coalbank and Isthmus Slough sub-basin areas. It's asking property owners and land managers to help.

The group is inviting all landowners in the 21,800-acre region, including Davis Slough and Noble Creek drainages south of Coos Bay, to a series of information-gathering meetings this month.

The goal is finding projects to help improve the watershed.

The get-togethers are part of the association's year-long project to identify the best areas for salmon habitat restoration projects in the sub-basin, said Bessie Joyce. She's the association's assessment and outreach coordinator.

Joyce said association representatives will talk with landowners about restoration efforts and how the process works. In turn, owners can provide information about the condition and use of their property, as well as their goals and concerns. They expect those concerns and questions might be about drainage issues, stream-bed erosion, noxious weed invasion, creating fish habitat or water quality. With that information, technicians are hoping to find potential areas for improving water quality and fish habitat.

"The goal of the assessment is to develop the most feasible projects," she said.

The association has been working on these types of projects for years.

Landowner and watershed board member Dave Messerle said a project on his property on Vogle Creek off the Lower Coos River seems to have improved conditions on the stream over the past three or four years.  It took about a week to put in bigger culverts on a logging access road and set large woody debris in the water for salmon.

"It's caused pools to form and is holding gravel back to create habitat," Messerle said.

To be feasible, a project needs to be located in places where it's needed, but also fit with how a landowner uses the land. For example, property used for raising cattle may not be the best location for wetland restoration. On the other hand, if a landowner in the middle of a patch of farms wants to do a project that would benefit the watershed, association technicians could design one that would have less impact on the surrounding land.

"If it's not feasible with the landowners there, it's not going to be a high priority for us," Joyce said.

All projects are done in cooperation and with permission of landowners and paid for through grants, at no cost to the owners at any stage in a restoration, she added.

 Watershed technicians want information, too, such as the condition and uses that can be beneficial to landowners and the watershed, Joyce said. Surveys can help people identify the cause for drainage problems on their land or help the association identify barriers to fish finding suitable habitat areas, such as  plugged culverts.

The association wants to hear not only from people who live along streams or have water on their property, but anyone living in the sub-basin.

After initial assessments are finished later this summer, landowners interested in having projects on their property will be able to visit completed efforts.

"People can see what our projects look like after they have been in a couple of years," Joyce said.

The organization plans another set of meetings in the winter on its analysis of the sub-basin and locations of suitable projects.