North Carolina · county
One thing here needs attention.
Two things could not be determined from the record.
Public records for McDowell County cover 118 named waterways across 29 sub-watersheds, and 94 active water systems serving about 27,345 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
| Waterway | Swimming | Eating the fish | Listed causes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Swannanoa River | Not considered safe | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS, FECAL COLIFORM |
| BROAD RIVER | Meets the standard | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Catheys Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | FISH BIOASSESSMENTS |
| First Broad River | Meets the standard | Not assessed | TURBIDITY |
| Grassy Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | FISH BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Hollands Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | FISH BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Mill Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Shooks Creek | Not assessed | Meets the standard | PH, LOW |
| South Muddy Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS |
| White Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Youngs Fork (Coperning Creek) | Not assessed | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS, FISH BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Armstrong Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
Showing 12 of 118 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| City of Marion | 9,362 | 1 | 1 |
| Baxter Health Care Corp | 2,450 | 0 | 0 |
| Town of Old Fort | 1,700 | 1 | 1 |
| Mcdowell Co--Nebo | 902 | 0 | 0 |
| Riverside Convenience Store | 500 | 0 | 0 |
| New North Cove Elem School | 450 | 0 | 0 |
| West Marion Elem School | 449 | 1 | 1 |
| Riverside MHP | 399 | 0 | 0 |
| Black Bear Development | 343 | 0 | 0 |
| Marion Moose Lodge | 320 | 1 | 1 |
| Woodlawn Heights Water System | 315 | 0 | 0 |
| Mecklenburg Scout Camp | 300 | 0 | 0 |
Showing the 12 largest of 94 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: 94 active water systems serve McDowell County. 20 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 Swannanoa River, Cane Creek, Ivy Creek (River) as not supporting recreation. That is an official determination about the waterway, not a measurement taken today.
105 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 McDowell County report