  The paper concerns scattering of plane waves by a bounded obstacle with
complex valued impedance boundary conditions. We study the spectrum of the
Neumann-to-Dirichlet operator for small wave numbers and long wave asymptotic
behavior of the solutions of the scattering problem. The study includes the
case when $k=0$ is an eigenvalue or a resonance. The transformation from the
impedance to the Dirichlet boundary condition as impedance grows is described.
A relation between poles and zeroes of the scattering matrix in the non-self
adjoint case is established. The results are applied to a problem of scattering
by an obstacle with a springy coating. The paper describes the dependence of
the impedance on the properties of the material, that is on forces due to the
deviation of the boundary of the obstacle from the equilibrium position.
