North Carolina · county
Two things here need attention.
Two things could not be determined from the record.
Public records for Columbus County cover 74 named waterways across 48 sub-watersheds, and 63 active water systems serving about 36,532 people. Below is what those records establish — and what they don't.
A state determination under the Clean Water Act. This is one of several assessed waterways in the area you searched — search a street address to see which waters connect to you.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| CAPE FEAR RIVER | Meets the standard | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS, DISSOLVED OXYGEN |
| Grissett Swamp (Lake Tabor) | Not assessed | Not assessed | CHLOROPHYLL-A - AQUATIC LIFE USE SUPPORT |
| Mill Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | PH, LOW |
| PD-038 | Meets the standard | Not considered safe | MERCURY IN FISH TISSUE |
| PD-362 | Not considered safe | Not assessed | ESCHERICHIA COLI (E. COLI) |
| PD-664 | Not assessed | Not considered safe | MERCURY IN FISH TISSUE |
| Porter Swamp | Not assessed | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS |
| RS-06009 | Not assessed | Not assessed | DISSOLVED OXYGEN |
| White Marsh | Not assessed | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Big Creek | Not assessed | Meets the standard | — |
| Big Swamp | Meets the standard | Meets the standard | — |
| Elkton Marsh | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
Showing 12 of 74 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Columbus Co Water Districts Ii, Iii, V | 10,442 | 0 | 0 |
| City of Whiteville | 5,426 | 1 | 1 |
| Town of Tabor City | 3,277 | 0 | 0 |
| Columbus County Water Dist Iv | 2,598 | 0 | 0 |
| Town of Lake Waccamaw | 2,572 | 1 | 1 |
| Town of Chadbourn | 2,370 | 1 | 1 |
| Columbus Co Water District I | 1,700 | 0 | 0 |
| Town of Fair Bluff | 800 | 0 | 0 |
| International Paper Company | 750 | 0 | 0 |
| Town of Bolton | 668 | 1 | 1 |
| Town of Brunswick | 495 | 0 | 0 |
| Town of Sandyfield | 439 | 0 | 0 |
Showing the 12 largest of 63 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: 63 active water systems serve Columbus County. 6 of them currently have 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 PD-362, RO-11301, RO-15365, RS-13127 as not supporting recreation. That is an official determination about the waterway, not a measurement taken today.
52 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 Columbus County report