North Carolina · county
One thing here needs attention.
Two things could not be determined from the record.
Public records for Onslow County cover 142 named waterways across 43 sub-watersheds, and 21 active water systems serving about 288,948 people. Below is what those records establish — and what they don't.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| New River | Meets the standard | Not considered safe | CHLOROPHYLL-A - AQUATIC LIFE USE SUPPORT, COPPER |
| WHITE OAK RIVER | Meets the standard | Not considered safe | DISSOLVED OXYGEN, PATHOGENS |
| Alligator Bay | Meets the standard | Not considered safe | PATHOGENS |
| Batts Mill Creek (Barlow Creek) | Not assessed | Not considered safe | PATHOGENS |
| Bear Creek | Not assessed | Not considered safe | FECAL COLIFORM, PATHOGENS |
| Bell Swamp | Not assessed | Not considered safe | FECAL COLIFORM, PATHOGENS |
| Biglins Creek | Not assessed | Not considered safe | PATHOGENS |
| Boathouse Creek | Not assessed | Not considered safe | FECAL COLIFORM, PATHOGENS |
| Bogue Sound | Not assessed | Not considered safe | PATHOGENS |
| Bogue Sound (Including Intracoastal Waterway to Beaufort Inl | Meets the standard | Not considered safe | PATHOGENS |
| Bogue Sound (Including Intracoastal Waterway) | Meets the standard | Not considered safe | PATHOGENS |
| Brinson Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | CHLOROPHYLL-A - AQUATIC LIFE USE SUPPORT, COPPER |
Showing 12 of 142 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Onslow WTR and Sewer Authority | 156,755 | 1 | 1 |
| City of Jacksonville | 49,093 | 1 | 1 |
| Usmc Lejeune--Hadnot Point | 37,500 | 0 | 0 |
| Usmc Lejeune--Holcomb BLVD | 17,000 | 0 | 0 |
| Usmc Lejeune--New River Air ST | 11,500 | 0 | 0 |
| Usmc Lejeune--Rifle Range | 3,500 | 0 | 0 |
| Old Settlers Water System | 2,677 | 1 | 1 |
| Northwest Onslow Water Assoc | 2,555 | 0 | 0 |
| Lauradale S/d | 2,527 | 1 | 1 |
| Raintree/summersill Estates #2 | 1,539 | 0 | 0 |
| Usmc Lejeune-Devil Dog-Verona Loop | 800 | 0 | 0 |
| White Street Industrial Park | 600 | 1 | 1 |
Showing the 12 largest of 21 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: 21 active water systems serve Onslow County. 7 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.
None of the 21 waterways assessed for recreation is listed as failing.
121 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 Onslow County report