Dust and silt

It is unfortunate that your May 27 front-page article on the rural road paving projects focused almost entirely on the negative. What about the costs of maintaining gravel roads, for instance? There was a brief mention of the dust issue with gravel roads, but if you ever travel or worse, live, on one of these roads in the summer you will know it is a serious problem, not just a nuisance.

Perhaps we should investigate the health consequences for the residents on these roads. Certainly much of this dust washes into our streams when rain does come. In fact, the amount of sediment washing off gravel roads and into nearby streams is many times that of paved roads. This is particularly true in the steep terrain of our mountains. If the trout could vote, they'd be for paving.

Richard McLaughlin

Chapel Hill