No failing determinations on record for Ballahack Canal
Official state determination · U.S. EPA / state agency — ATTAINS assessed waters
North Carolina · county
Water quality in Edgecombe County, North Carolina
Nothing here is flagged for attention.
That covers what has been measured and assessed — not what hasn't. Two things could not be determined from the record.
Public records for Edgecombe County cover 54 named waterways across 30 sub-watersheds, and 9 active water systems serving about 30,693 people. Below is what those records establish — and what they don't.
54waterways on record
0not considered safe for swimming
0under fish-consumption advisories
17never assessed at all
9water systems
5with an unresolved health-based violation
What the records flag
Rivers, creeks & lakes
| Waterway | Swimming | Eating the fish | Listed causes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ballahack Canal | On record, no conclusion | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Conetoe Creek | Meets the standard | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Fishing Creek | Meets the standard | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Grindle Creek | Meets the standard | Not assessed | PH, LOW |
| Hendricks Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Little Contentnea Creek | On record, no conclusion | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Town Creek | Meets the standard | Not assessed | DISSOLVED OXYGEN |
| Beech Branch | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
| Beech Swamp | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
| Bynums Mill Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
| Cokey Swamp | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
| Compass Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
Showing 12 of 54 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
| System | Serves | Health-based violations since 2021 | Without recorded resolution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Edgecombe Water & Sewer District | 14,485 | 8 | 8 |
| Town of Tarboro | 10,844 | 1 | 1 |
| Town of Princeville | 1,550 | 0 | 0 |
| Town of Pinetops | 1,200 | 1 | 1 |
| Conetoe Community Water System | 1,090 | 0 | 0 |
| Town of Whitakers | 869 | 0 | 0 |
| Town of Macclesfield | 441 | 1 | 1 |
| Winstead Mobile Terrace | 189 | 2 | 2 |
| United Church of Jesus Christ | 25 | 0 | 0 |
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
- 17 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 Edgecombe 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: 9 active water systems serve Edgecombe County. 5 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 Edgecombe County are not considered safe for swimming?
None of the 20 waterways assessed for recreation is listed as failing.
34 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
| 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.
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 Edgecombe County report