The Air We Breathe, the Water We Share

My background is in wildlife. I earned a B.S. in Forest Resources from the University of Georgia, majoring in Wildlife, and an M.S. in Fisheries and Wildlife Management from West Virginia University. I've worked with black bears, salamanders, and songbirds, and conducted research on invertebrates, plants, and trees.

I previously served as Citizen Science Director at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont, running surveys and research with middle school students, high schoolers, and adults. Before coming to HBS, I spent 12 years as Site Manager for the Coweeta Long-Term Ecological Research Program, coordinating long-term projects with students and faculty from more than a dozen universities.

In 2018, I received funding for two high school students to do a summer research internship. Microplastics were becoming a hot topic, but at the time there were no studies in the Southeast. I thought it would be interesting to examine microplastics in Asian clams from local rivers. I didn't expect to find much — but the concentrations were as high or higher than those reported in Asian clams from the Yangtze River in China, a notoriously polluted river.

A year later, after I joined HBS, I learned Dr. Jerry Miller at WCU was also beginning to study microplastics in Western North Carolina streams. We decided to collaborate, bringing on PIs including Dr. Robert Youker (WCU) and Dr. Austin Gray (Virginia Tech). The work has expanded into headwater streams and caddisflies; IE students extended it into terrestrial systems — earthworms, shrews, and bats. This past semester students re-sampled Asian clams from my 2018 sites to see whether concentrations have changed. But perhaps the most exciting area has been atmospheric deposition.

In 2021, IE students did their Capstone project on microplastics in the headwaters of the Chattooga River, a National Wild and Scenic River. On a whim, we set out buckets to see whether any microplastics were arriving via atmospheric deposition. Surprisingly, we found quite a lot.

In 2023, with state funding, we installed three atmospheric deposition collectors in the region — including one at HBS — that sample both “wet” deposition during precipitation and “dry” deposition. We now have more than two years of data, including sampling during Hurricane Helene. Deposition varies by location and is strongly influenced by rainfall: the more precipitation an area receives, the more microplastics are deposited. We also found that Helene delivered an enormous load of microplastics to the region and the Southeast as a whole. We're preparing a manuscript on these findings now.

Most ecologists recognize that we now live in the Anthropocene — though some argue it should be called the Plasticene — a time when humans have become a force of nature. We've changed the pH of the ocean, altered atmospheric chemistry, and reduced wildlife so dramatically that if you weighed all mammals on Earth, 36% would be humans, 60% would be the livestock we use, and only 4% would be wild animals.

Plastics are another indicator of our impact. The same qualities that make them useful — durable, long-lasting, inexpensive — also make them persistent pollutants. We use plastics and microplastics to talk not only about how humans affect the environment, but how we can change our behavior by reducing consumption. We also hope the research informs the public and policymakers so plastic production and use can be curbed.

The projects vary widely — from assessing how bats use mines and caves to measuring trash and plastic in our rivers. Some are in their third or fourth year, with terabytes of data and established protocols; others are brand new, and students must figure things out with guidance from mentors.

One I'm especially interested in this year examines the impact of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' “debris removal” in the upper Little Tennessee River watershed. This past summer, permitted contractors drove 30-ton feller bunchers into rivers to remove large wood and even cut live trees in the name of public safety — removing tens of thousands of cubic feet of fish habitat, eliminating shade, and damaging a river that didn't experience catastrophic flooding during Helene. We hope this study helps make future debris removal more targeted and less damaging.

The typical answer is that the Plateau is rich in biodiversity — flora, salamanders, mosses, and fungi — and that's certainly true. But what makes it especially interesting is that people live here. That lets us measure how development affects stream water quality, the spread of invasive species, habitat fragmentation's impact on songbirds, and more. It's also a place people come to enjoy clean air and pristine streams. What we're finding is that these areas aren't necessarily pristine — microplastic concentrations in our streams are among the highest ever measured.

Funding is often the biggest challenge. We've been fortunate to have strong support from the Water Resources Research Institute, and support from the Highlands Biological Foundation lets us hire technicians — without them, our capacity would be far lower. I'd like to establish more atmospheric deposition sites, ideally in Great Smoky Mountains National Park or near Class I Wilderness Areas like Linville Gorge or Shining Rock. These are supposed to have “wilderness-quality” air and water; sulfur dioxide and ozone are monitored there, but no one is measuring microplastics. I'd also like to expand our mussel work to more watersheds. All of it requires funding, and federal support has become increasingly difficult to secure.

Pursue hands-on experiences — like summer internships — to build your résumé. The Highlands IE program does this exceptionally well: students spend three of five weekdays on Capstone or independent research, which helps them land internships and jobs they might not otherwise reach.

I'd also be honest that this work is rewarding but can be sobering. We're ecological accountants in a world that derives wealth from exploiting natural resources. You have to be comfortable being the underdog and hold tightly to the positive trends — like the fact that U.S. surface waters are generally much cleaner than before the Clean Water Act, even though that progress is now threatened.