No failing determinations on record for Big Buffalo Creek
Official state determination · U.S. EPA / state agency — ATTAINS assessed waters
North Carolina · county
Water quality in Lee 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 Lee County cover 52 named waterways across 16 sub-watersheds, and 8 active water systems serving about 56,822 people. Below is what those records establish — and what they don't.
52waterways on record
0not considered safe for swimming
0under fish-consumption advisories
14never assessed at all
8water systems
3with an unresolved health-based violation
What the records flag
Rivers, creeks & lakes
| Waterway | Swimming | Eating the fish | Listed causes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big Buffalo Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | FISH BIOASSESSMENTS |
| CAPE FEAR RIVER | Meets the standard | Not assessed | CHLOROPHYLL-A - AQUATIC LIFE USE SUPPORT |
| Gulf Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | FISH BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Indian Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | FISH BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Lick Creek | Meets the standard | Not assessed | DISSOLVED OXYGEN, TURBIDITY |
| Persimmon Creek | Not assessed | Meets the standard | DISSOLVED OXYGEN |
| Barbeque Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
| Beaver Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
| Big Governors Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
| Buckhorn Creek (Harris Lake) | Meets the standard | Not assessed | — |
| Carrs Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
| Crane Creek (Craine Creek) | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
Showing 12 of 52 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| City of Sanford | 48,350 | 1 | 1 |
| Carolina Trace Water System | 4,516 | 1 | 1 |
| Town of Broadway | 1,783 | 0 | 0 |
| Pilgrim`s Pride Water System | 1,040 | 0 | 0 |
| Quail Ridge Water System | 465 | 0 | 0 |
| Pine Village MHC LLC | 411 | 1 | 1 |
| Farm Water Works | 167 | 0 | 0 |
| Sanford First Pentecostal | 90 | 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
- 14 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 Lee 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: 8 active water systems serve Lee County. 3 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 Lee County are not considered safe for swimming?
None of the 11 waterways assessed for recreation is listed as failing.
41 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 Lee County report