ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — Hundreds of people gathered in Asheville to share their thoughts on the U.S. Forest Service’s proposed rollback of the “Roadless Rule.”

This rule established prohibitions on road construction, road reconstruction and timber harvests on nearly 60 million acres of national forests and grasslands, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

MountainTrue, the Sierra Club and other nonprofits organized the public hearing. The organizers will send the audio recording from the meeting and the written comments to the federal government.

“When the rule was created, the federal government held 600 public meetings. Now that the government is rescinding the rule, they’re holding no public meetings and it’s being done in a rush,” said MountainTrue’s resilient forests director Josh Kelly.

Kelly said anyone was welcome to the event, even people who want to see the rule rescinded. However, everyone News 13 spoke with before the event said they’re against rescinding the “Roadless Rule.”

PROPOSED ROLLBACK OF USFS ‘ROADLESS RULE’ PROMPTS ASHEVILLE ROUNDTABLE

“We should not be subjected to cutting up the forest, mining up the forest,” said Pat Davis, a Hickory resident.

“When they run these roads in, they start logging … We’re going to have all this runoff. It’s going to destroy basically the last strongholds of these trout. They are in those national forest areas,” said Roy DuVerger, a Whittier Resident.

According to a U.S. Department of Agriculture press release, rescinding the roadless rule would allow for fire prevention and responsible timber production.

But Kelly said rescinding this rule would have negative impacts.

“The impact would mean much more taxpayer dollars spent on and wasted on building roads into the most inaccessible and rugged parts of our national forest,” said Kelly.

U.S. FOREST SERVICE RESTRUCTURING RAISES QUESTIONS FOR WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA FORESTS

It would also result in erosion and damage to fish and wildlife habitat, according to Kelly.

He said affected areas in western North Carolina include the South Mills River, the Black Mountains and Tusquitee Bald.

This public hearing is the first of a series of community events across WNC this month aiming to provide citizens with the opportunity to learn about the U.S. Forest Service’s proposed rollback of the “Roadless Rule.”

Click here for more information about the upcoming events on MountainTrue’s website.

North Carolina’s drought is pushing water levels lower and putting a sharper focus on whether the state’s water supply can keep pace with growth and a changing climate.

At Falls Lake, Raleigh’s primary source, levels are hovering just 2% above the threshold that could trigger restrictions. 

“It is incredibly unusual for Falls Lake to be two and a half feet down in the middle of April,” Raleigh Water Assistant Director Ed Buchan said.

Reservoirs typically refill through the winter and spring. This year’s dry stretch has disrupted that pattern, leaving systems with less cushion heading into warmer months.

But drought is just one piece of a larger strain on the state’s water supplies.

A system under pressure

A recent United Nations report warns that many water systems worldwide are moving beyond short-term shortages and into a more persistent imbalance. Researchers describe it as “water bankruptcy,” when long-term use and damage outpace what natural systems can replenish.

In those cases, recovery to past conditions is no longer realistic.

The report points to a combination of factors, including population growth, overuse, pollution and climate change. Drought plays a role, but increasingly as part of a broader pattern driven by human activity.

Some of the same global pressures are beginning to surface in North Carolina.

Growth, transfers and demand

Across the state, communities are growing and looking for new water sources.

In Fuquay-Varina, officials are seeking to withdraw millions of gallons per day from the Cape Fear River Basin to support future demand, while returning treated water to a different basin. The proposal has drawn opposition from downstream communities concerned about long-term impacts.

Moving water between river basins can reduce the supply where it is taken from, especially during dry periods.

“The more we transfer water out of river basins, the greater that’s going to impact rural communities,” Western Piedmont Council of Governments Executive Director Anthony Starr said.

Those decisions are becoming more common as utilities try to keep pace with growth, but they also raise questions about how much water can be moved — and from where — before systems begin to feel the strain.

Local decisions, limited visibility

At the local level, officials say they are often weighing those questions without a complete picture of long-term impacts.

In Chatham County, commissioners recently approved a moratorium on data centers, driven in part by concerns about water use.

“I think that is probably the single greatest concern, and that is that probably what was weighed by the minds of our commissioners in deciding to pass the moratorium more than anything else,” Chatham Commissioner Karen Howard said. “We know that our climate future is at risk. We are in the process of creating a climate plan and the use of water is a significant concern for us.” 

Howard said the pace of development can outstrip the ability to fully study its effects.

That uncertainty extends to smaller systems across the state.

“These rural systems don’t have the resources to do engineering studies so they don’t fully understand the impact before approving these projects,” said Heather Somers, director of the North Carolina Rural Water Association.

“If we don’t get some reins in place to reel that in and have some oversight on what these industrial users are going to pull from our resources, we’re going to be in trouble for sure,” Somers said.

Climate and compounding drought

Climate change is expected to make those challenges more complex.

Higher temperatures increase evaporation, while rainfall is becoming less predictable. That can mean longer dry periods followed by more intense storms, which do not always replenish water supplies in the same way.

Even when conditions improve, recovery may be incomplete.

“It takes a long time to get into a drought, and a long time to get out,” Buchan said.

Some water managers are increasingly looking at drought not as a single event, but as part of a longer cycle. Systems may not fully recover between dry periods, leaving less margin for the next one.

A changing balance

North Carolina’s water system has long depended on balance. Much of the water withdrawn by utilities is treated and returned to rivers, where it becomes part of the supply again.

But that balance can shift as demand changes.

Some large industrial users, including certain types of data centers, rely on cooling systems that remove water from the local system through evaporation.

“That’s water not going back to the Neuse River,” Buchan said. “It’s just gone.”

At the same time, long-term planning is built on projections that can be difficult to predict.

Regional utilities are working together through the Triangle Water Supply Partnership to map out demand decades into the future, but new types of growth and changing climate conditions add uncertainty to those forecasts.

“You’re really making a lot of assumptions,” Buchan said.

For now, utilities say North Carolina has the capacity to manage through the current drought.

But the combination of growth, shifting demand, climate variability and decisions about how water is shared across regions is raising a broader question.

Not just how to respond to this drought — but whether the system, as it exists today, can sustain what is coming next.

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — As plants and flowers bloom this Spring, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission warns residents of the bees burrowing underground who have begun to emerge to pollinate.

The wildlife officials said they have received numerous calls from panicked landowners who have “a bunch of little bees hovering over the ground.”

This is because, according to wildlife officials, little burrows full of solitary bees reside across small, cool areas such as a front or back yard. The National Wildlife Federation said solitary bees make up about 98 percent of native bee species in the United States, and more than 500 of those species nest underground in North Carolina.

The burrowing bees nest in masses, according to wildlife officials. They have no hive or colony to defend, so they are more inclined to fly away from danger than feel the need to attack. Wildlife officials said only female solitary bees have the anatomy to be able to sting.

“Some people believe the solution is to pour gasoline into their burrows or spray them with insecticides to rid them of an area. But bees provide a crucial pollinator role to our ecosystem.”

According to wildlife officials, the wild bees provide pollination services for over 80 percent of flowers in NC.

“Furthermore,” officials added, “they contribute billions of dollars to our economy by pollinating crops.”

Wildlife officials said the ground-nesting bees hover above the surface for a very short time. They said after spending two to three weeks above ground, the bees won’t emerge again until next spring.