North Carolina · county
Two things here need attention.
Two things could not be determined from the record.
Public records for Gaston County cover 86 named waterways across 23 sub-watersheds, and 248 active water systems serving about 201,183 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| B-325 | Not considered safe | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES, ESCHERICHIA COLI (E. COLI) |
| CATAWBA RIVER (Lake Norman below elevation 760) | Not assessed | Not considered safe | PCBS - FISH CONSUMPTION ADVISORY, TURBIDITY |
| CATAWBA RIVER (Lake Wylie South FK Catawba Arm) North Carolina portion | Meets the standard | Not considered safe | COPPER, PCBS - FISH CONSUMPTION ADVISORY |
| Clark Creek | Not considered safe | Not assessed | COPPER, FECAL COLIFORM |
| Buffalo Creek (Kings Mountain Reservoir) | Not assessed | Not assessed | TEMPERATURE |
| Catawba Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS, FISH BIOASSESSMENTS |
| CATAWBA RIVER (Lake Wylie below elevation 570) | Meets the standard | Not considered safe | PCBS - FISH CONSUMPTION ADVISORY |
| CATAWBA RIVER (Lake Wylie below elevation 570) North Carolina portion | Meets the standard | Not considered safe | PCBS - FISH CONSUMPTION ADVISORY |
| CATAWBA RIVER (Mountain Island Lake below elevation 648) | Not assessed | Not considered safe | PCBS - FISH CONSUMPTION ADVISORY |
| Crowders Creek | Meets the standard | On record, no conclusion | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS, FISH BIOASSESSMENTS |
| CW-023 | Not considered safe | Not assessed | ESCHERICHIA COLI (E. COLI) |
| CW-197 | Meets the standard | Not considered safe | PCBS IN FISH TISSUE |
Showing 12 of 86 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two Rivers Utilities | 96,714 | 0 | 0 |
| City of Mount Holly | 19,200 | 0 | 0 |
| City of Belmont | 17,477 | 0 | 0 |
| Town of Dallas | 8,212 | 3 | 3 |
| City of Cherryville | 6,353 | 1 | 1 |
| City of Bessemer City | 5,730 | 7 | 7 |
| Town of Stanley | 5,453 | 1 | 1 |
| Town of Ranlo | 4,511 | 1 | 1 |
| City of Lowell | 3,837 | 1 | 1 |
| Belmont Abbey College | 1,325 | 0 | 0 |
| Town of Mcadenville | 930 | 0 | 0 |
| City of High Shoals | 729 | 0 | 0 |
Showing the 12 largest of 248 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: 248 active water systems serve Gaston County. 19 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 B-325, Clark Creek, CW-023, CW-253, Irwin Creek and 1 more as not supporting recreation. That is an official determination about the waterway, not a measurement taken today.
59 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 Gaston County report