“Trout fishermen brought $1.34 billion dollars to our state”
“harm this industry”
What it names
Roadless areas
Cheoah Bald
The comment
I oppose to proposal to rescind or alter the roadless rule.
I am a senior at Western Carolina University with a major in Biology and a minor in Natural Resource Conservation and Management. I live in western North Carolina and appreciate the ecological value of the extensive forests in this area. If the roadless rule is rescinded, it will open up areas such as Cheoah Bald and the Graveyard Ridge Roadless Area to the construction of new roads.
While habitat fragmentation is a significant ecological issue, I am also concerned about microplastics from car tires. Multiple studies have found that car tires are one of the main sources of microplastic pollution (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/374926390_Unraveling_the_Marine_Microplastic_Cycle_The_First_Simultaneous_Data_Set_for_Air_Sea_Surface_Microlayer_and_Underlying_Water) (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13327939/). By allowing the construction of roads in these areas, we will be introducing microplastics into the ecosystem that will persist for possibly hundreds of years, and eventually end up in our water supply. We do not yet fully understand the negative health risks of microplastics, so allowing them to enter our watersheds could have widespread health impacts for citizens.
Additionally, chemicals used in tires such as 6PPD - quinone have been shown to be toxic to fish, including rainbow trout (https://pubs.acs.org/esthag/article-abstract/59/13/6771/3662914/Subchronic-and-Acute-Toxicity-of-6PPD-Quinone-to). Trout fishermen brought $1.34 billion dollars to our state in 2023 (https://www.ncwildlife.gov/ncwrc-trout-report-final/open). Rescinding the roadless rule will allow toxic tire chemicals to enter our headwaters, which will harm this industry.