North Carolina · county
Two things here need attention.
Two things could not be determined from the record.
Public records for Alexander County cover 68 named waterways across 18 sub-watersheds, and 25 active water systems serving about 39,548 people. Below is what those records establish — and what they don't.
A state determination under the Clean Water Act. This creek is close to you, but your water doesn't flow from it.
Official determination, waterway near you · U.S. EPA / state agency — ATTAINS assessed waters
The state has determined this water doesn't meet standards for eating the fish caught in it. It's close to you, but your water doesn't flow from it.
Official determination, waterway near you · U.S. EPA / state agency — ATTAINS assessed waters
| Waterway | Swimming | Eating the fish | Listed causes |
|---|---|---|---|
| CATAWBA RIVER (Lake Norman below elevation 760) | Not assessed | Not considered safe | PCBS - FISH CONSUMPTION ADVISORY, TURBIDITY |
| Falling Creek | On record, no conclusion | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Isaac Creek | Not assessed | Meets the standard | PH, LOW |
| Lower Little River | On record, no conclusion | Not assessed | FISH BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Muddy Fork | Not assessed | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Snow Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | FISH BIOASSESSMENTS |
| YADKIN RIVER (W. Kerr Scott Reservoir below Elevation 1030) | Not assessed | Not assessed | CHLOROPHYLL-A - AQUATIC LIFE USE SUPPORT, PH, HIGH |
| Beaver Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
| Big Warrior Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
| Buffalo Shoals Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
| CATAWBA RIVER (Lake Hickory below elevation 935) | On record, no conclusion | Not assessed | — |
| CATAWBA RIVER (Lookout Shoals Lake below elevation 845) | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
Showing 12 of 68 waterways on record — the full report has all of them. "Not considered safe" is a state determination under the Clean Water Act, not a measurement taken today. "Not assessed" means unknown — never clean.
| System | Serves | Health-based violations since 2021 | Without recorded resolution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Energy United Water Corp | 21,148 | 0 | 0 |
| Alexander Co WTR Dist | 13,064 | 0 | 0 |
| Town of Taylorsville | 3,265 | 0 | 0 |
| Three Forks Baptist Church | 350 | 0 | 0 |
| Oxford Memorial Bapt CH | 175 | 0 | 0 |
| Hillsboro S/d | 170 | 0 | 0 |
| Lebanon Baptist Church | 125 | 0 | 0 |
| Dover Baptist Church | 120 | 0 | 0 |
| Poplar Spring Baptist Church | 120 | 0 | 0 |
| Cedar Wood Estates | 109 | 0 | 0 |
| Bethel Missionary Baptist CH | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| Five Oaks S/d | 99 | 0 | 0 |
Showing the 12 largest of 25 active systems serving the county. Health-based violations are shown alone — administrative (paperwork) records are counted separately and never added in, because most violation records are paperwork.
No public dataset can establish that any tap is safe or unsafe — records have gaps, lag by up to a quarter, and say nothing about a building's own plumbing or private wells.
What the records do show: 25 active water systems serve Alexander County. None currently has an unresolved health-based violation on record. Health-based violations are counted separately from paperwork violations, which make up most records.
State assessments under the Clean Water Act list Spainhour Creek, Blair Fork, Roaring River, Zacks Fork Creek as not supporting recreation. That is an official determination about the waterway, not a measurement taken today.
49 of the county's waterways on record have never been assessed for swimming — their condition is unknown.
Datasets refresh on their agencies' cycles — EPA drinking-water records quarterly, state waterway assessments roughly every two years. The sources table on this page lists the version and retrieval date of every dataset used.
| Dataset | Agency version | Retrieved |
|---|---|---|
| EPA/state ATTAINS waterway assessments | ATTAINS_Assessment ArcGIS snapshot (gispub.epa.gov) | 2026-08-15 |
| ATTAINS waterway geometry | ATTAINS_Assessment ArcGIS lines + areas (gispub.epa.gov) | 2026-08-16 |
| Census TIGER county boundaries | Census TIGERweb Counties (current vintage) | 2026-08-16 |
| NC DEQ PFAS monitoring | NC DEQ DWR EQuIS export, samples through 2025-07-29 | 2026-08-17 |
| Census TIGER place boundaries | Census TIGERweb Places (Incorporated + CDP, current vintage) | 2026-08-16 |
| EPA water system service areas | EPA PWS Service Areas v3 (hosted layer, item 80c6912ef14f46e480f5afd807767b4b) | 2026-08-15 |
| EPA Safe Drinking Water Act compliance records | ECHO SDWA quarterly bulk download | 2026-08-16 |
| EPA standards & benchmarks | 2026-08 curation | 2026-08-15 |
| EPA UCMR5 PFAS monitoring | UCMR5 occurrence data (collections through 2025-12-10) | 2026-08-15 |
| USGS watershed boundaries | USGS WBD via National Map MapServer | 2026-08-15 |
Records lag their agencies' refresh cycles — a recent change may not appear yet. Absence from a dataset is absence of a record, never evidence that water is clean.
The interactive report adds the map, monitoring-station samples, permitted operations in connected watersheds, and plain-language explanations of every term.
See the full Alexander County report