No failing determinations on record for Bear Branch
Official state determination · U.S. EPA / state agency — ATTAINS assessed waters
North Carolina · county
Water quality in Nash 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 Nash County cover 58 named waterways across 35 sub-watersheds, and 54 active water systems serving about 81,245 people. Below is what those records establish — and what they don't.
58waterways on record
0not considered safe for swimming
0under fish-consumption advisories
16never assessed at all
54water systems
8with an unresolved health-based violation
What the records flag
Rivers, creeks & lakes
| Waterway | Swimming | Eating the fish | Listed causes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bear Branch | Not assessed | Not assessed | DISSOLVED OXYGEN, TURBIDITY |
| Cedar Creek | Meets the standard | Not assessed | TURBIDITY |
| Crooked Creek | Meets the standard | Not assessed | DISSOLVED OXYGEN |
| Little Creek (East Side) | Not assessed | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Stony Creek (Boddies Millpond) | On record, no conclusion | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS |
| TAR RIVER (including lower portion of the City of Rocky Mount Reservoir below highwater elevation 130 feet MSL) | Meets the standard | Not assessed | DISSOLVED OXYGEN |
| Town Creek | Meets the standard | Not assessed | DISSOLVED OXYGEN |
| Turkey Creek | Meets the standard | Not assessed | DISSOLVED OXYGEN |
| UT to Town Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Back Swamp | Not assessed | Meets the standard | — |
| Bear Swamp | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
| Beaverdam Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
Showing 12 of 58 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 Rocky Mount | 55,891 | 0 | 0 |
| Central Nash Water & Sewer | 7,675 | 0 | 0 |
| Town of Nashville | 5,900 | 2 | 2 |
| Town of Sharpsburg | 1,945 | 0 | 0 |
| Northern Nash Water District | 1,694 | 0 | 0 |
| Middlesex Water System | 1,389 | 2 | 2 |
| Town of Spring Hope | 1,312 | 0 | 0 |
| Nash County Water System Area 2 | 701 | 0 | 0 |
| Town of Bailey | 566 | 1 | 1 |
| New Dixie Mart No 19 | 500 | 0 | 0 |
| Ray of Hope Christian Center | 300 | 0 | 0 |
| Midpoint Church | 200 | 0 | 0 |
Showing the 12 largest of 54 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
- 16 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 Nash 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: 54 active water systems serve Nash County. 8 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 Nash County are not considered safe for swimming?
None of the 20 waterways assessed for recreation is listed as failing.
38 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 Nash County report