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Rogue Aggregates, Inc., a Knife River Corporation company, helped establish the Rogue River Stakeholders Group. The partnership of public and private entities was created to prevent dewatering and to protect fish and wildlife habitat along a three-mile stretch of the Rogue River in southern Oregon.
Significant flood flows in the late 1990s, combined with historic unregulated gravel pit operations along the river, began to compromise channel stability. This instability threatened important salmon and steelhead habitat through riverbank erosion and abandoned aggregate pit capture.
To prevent likely damage to the river, the Rogue River Stakeholders Group of business, government, landowners and other interested parties was formed. The group built consensus, obtained permits, secured funding and organized volunteer efforts to construct stream barbs and other stabilization features along the river. This nonregulatory approach has been viewed as "a national model of cooperation and problem solving" and a good example of "how a civic-minded aggregate company can be a vital asset to the community in which it operates" (Aggregates Manager, February 2006).
The Rogue River project has won several awards: the 2000 and 2003 MDU Resources Environmental Integrity Award; the 2002 Oregon Plan Award for protecting fish and their watersheds, presented to the Rogue River Stakeholders Group by the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries Award Committee; and the 2005 Good Neighbor Award for outstanding contribution to the Rogue Watershed, presented to the Rogue River Stakeholders Group by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
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