In 2005, the Association began its formal outreach program directed to landowners in the Coos Bay Lowland areas surrounding the Coos estuary. These lowland areas are characterized by a higher diversity of private ownership and land uses, as compared to the timber-dominated uplands. The mixture of private land uses, and smaller acreages in these lowland areas make it necessary for the Association to establish communications and working relationships with landowners to achieve watershed restoration goals. Through this program, we hold series of neighborhood Coffee Klatch meetings, where Association staff meet with landowners in their homes to solicit concerns and objectives, introduce and prioritize potential restoration actions, and present assessment results. As a result of our success in completing our Coos Bay Lowlands Assessment and Restoration Plan and Heads-of-Tide Draft Assessment, we will continue to use this model in order to assess and complete restoration planning in other areas of the watershed.
Our restoration efforts include fish passage and in-stream habitat improvements, riparian area enhancement, and road-related erosion control. Our restoration projects have a broad representation of landowner partners including small acreage rural residential owners, agriculture operators, timber companies, and the state forest.
Monitoring of our restoration efforts is important to ensure specific project success as well as to guide future restoration priorities and project designs. Through this program we are developing monitoring protocols and tools as well as disseminating the monitoring results in peer reviewed reports.
Our organization is completing scientific monitoring of watershed health benefits that result from our projects. This involves both careful planning, in order to collect the baseline data before a project is completed, and dedication and follow-through in order to collect data over a time frame through which project responses can be measured.
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