WHAT’S BEYOND THE TAP

North Carolina · county

Water quality in Duplin County, North Carolina

One thing here needs attention.

Two things could not be determined from the record.

Public records for Duplin County cover 45 named waterways across 43 sub-watersheds, and 20 active water systems serving about 43,574 people. Below is what those records establish — and what they don't.

45waterways on record
4not considered safe for swimming
0under fish-consumption advisories
11never assessed at all
20water systems
7with an unresolved health-based violation

What the records flag

Needs attention

Maxwell Creek is not considered safe for swimming

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.

Listed cause
FECAL COLIFORM

Official determination, waterway near you · U.S. EPA / state agency — ATTAINS assessed waters

Rivers, creeks & lakes

WaterwaySwimmingEating the fishListed causes
Barlow BranchOn record, no conclusionNot assessedCHLORIDE
Bear CreekOn record, no conclusionNot assessedBENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS, FISH PASSAGE BARRIER
Goshen SwampOn record, no conclusionNot assessedBENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS
Limestone CreekNot assessedNot assessedBENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS
Maxwell CreekNot considered safeNot assessedFECAL COLIFORM
Muddy CreekOn record, no conclusionNot assessedBENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS
Northeast Cape Fear RiverMeets the standardMeets the standardCHLORIDE
Stockinghead CreekNot considered safeNot assessedFECAL COLIFORM
UT to Stockinghead Creek 4Not considered safeNot assessedFECAL COLIFORM
UT to Stockinghead Creek 5Not considered safeNot assessedFECAL COLIFORM
Angola CreekOn record, no conclusionNot assessed
Cabin CreekNot assessedNot assessed

Showing 12 of 45 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.

Drinking water systems

SystemServesHealth-based violations since 2021Without recorded resolution
Duplin County Water System18,54200
Town of Wallace5,82522
Chinquapin Water Association4,68600
Town of Warsaw3,10800
Town of Rose Hill1,86700
Town of Faison1,41011
Town of Greenevers1,39000
Town of Beulaville1,32600
Town of Magnolia98022
Town of Kenansville87600
Town of Teachey66300
Town of Calypso66011

Showing the 12 largest of 20 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.

What the record doesn’t establish

  • 11 nearby waterways have never been assessed — their condition is unknown.
  • Whether your home's own plumbing adds lead or copper — no dataset covers indoor pipes.

Common questions

Is tap water safe to drink in Duplin County?

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: 20 active water systems serve Duplin County. 7 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.

Which waterways in Duplin County are not considered safe for swimming?

State assessments under the Clean Water Act list Maxwell Creek, Stockinghead Creek, UT to Stockinghead Creek 4, UT to Stockinghead Creek 5 as not supporting recreation. That is an official determination about the waterway, not a measurement taken today.

18 of the county's waterways on record have never been assessed for swimming — their condition is unknown.

How current is this data?

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.

Sources

DatasetAgency versionRetrieved
EPA/state ATTAINS waterway assessmentsATTAINS_Assessment ArcGIS snapshot (gispub.epa.gov)2026-08-15
ATTAINS waterway geometryATTAINS_Assessment ArcGIS lines + areas (gispub.epa.gov)2026-08-16
Census TIGER county boundariesCensus TIGERweb Counties (current vintage)2026-08-16
NC DEQ PFAS monitoringNC DEQ DWR EQuIS export, samples through 2025-07-292026-08-17
Census TIGER place boundariesCensus TIGERweb Places (Incorporated + CDP, current vintage)2026-08-16
EPA water system service areasEPA PWS Service Areas v3 (hosted layer, item 80c6912ef14f46e480f5afd807767b4b)2026-08-15
EPA Safe Drinking Water Act compliance recordsECHO SDWA quarterly bulk download2026-08-16
EPA standards & benchmarks2026-08 curation2026-08-15
EPA UCMR5 PFAS monitoringUCMR5 occurrence data (collections through 2025-12-10)2026-08-15
USGS watershed boundariesUSGS WBD via National Map MapServer2026-08-15

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.

Go deeper

The interactive report adds the map, monitoring-station samples, permitted operations in connected watersheds, and plain-language explanations of every term.

See the full Duplin County report