By Derek Spellman

dspellman@joplinglobe.com

NEOSHO, Mo. — The support of property owners will be the key element in any plans shaped for the lower Shoal Creek watershed, an official said.

In that vein, the Lower Shoal Creek Watershed Committee has sent out the first round of surveys to property owners along the stream to gauge their “knowledge and perception of water quality issues,” said Craig Jones, a planner for the Harry S. Truman Coordinating Council, which is advising the group. A second round of surveys is planned for later this year.

The Lower Shoal Creek Watershed Committee is using a $30,000 grant from the state Department of Natural Resources to finance the survey.

“The watershed improvement lives or dies with the stakeholders, the property owners,” Jones said.

Committee members also met with a small group of property owners on Thursday to outline what the organization has done so far, Jones said.

“It was mainly a listening post for them,” he said. “It was the first point of contact for the landowners.”

The surveys pose questions to property owners about how they use their land and what their perspectives are on the watershed’s future.

The response from property owners will help guide the watershed committee, which Jones said is still in its “gestation period.”

A potential goal of the committee, Jones said, is to use the feedback from the property owners to devise a watershed management plan that will enjoy broad-based support.

“The property owners’ involvement will drive the plan,” he said.

The Environmental Task Force of Jasper and Newton Counties last year formed the Lower Shoal Creek Watershed Committee as a steering committee. The group’s mission statement designates not just the lower part but the entire Shoal Creek watershed — from its headwaters in Barry County to its confluence with Spring River west of the Missouri-Kansas line near Riverton, Kan. — as the area to be served by the plan.

The goal of the group is to “identify and implement voluntary, common-sense actions that will help to improve and conserve the water quality” of the lower part of the creek and its tributaries.