North Carolina · county
Two things here need attention.
Two things could not be determined from the record.
Public records for Person County cover 62 named waterways across 23 sub-watersheds, and 46 active water systems serving about 17,674 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hyco River | Not considered safe | Not considered safe | ESCHERICHIA COLI (E. COLI), PCBS IN FISH TISSUE |
| Aarons Creek | Not considered safe | Meets the standard | ESCHERICHIA COLI (E. COLI) |
| Big Bluewing Creek | Meets the standard | Not assessed | DISSOLVED OXYGEN |
| Bowes Branch | Not assessed | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Flat River | Meets the standard | Not assessed | DISSOLVED OXYGEN |
| Flat River (including the Flat River Arm of Falls Lake) | Meets the standard | Not assessed | DISSOLVED OXYGEN |
| Knap of Reeds Creek | Meets the standard | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS, ZINC |
| Little Bluewing Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Marlowe Creek | On record, no conclusion | Not assessed | BENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES BIOASSESSMENTS, COPPER |
| Mayo Creek | Not considered safe | Meets the standard | ESCHERICHIA COLI (E. COLI) |
| NEUSE RIVER (Falls Lake below normal pool elevation) | Not assessed | Not assessed | CHLOROPHYLL-A - AQUATIC LIFE USE SUPPORT, TURBIDITY |
| Powells Creek | Not considered safe | Not assessed | ESCHERICHIA COLI (E. COLI) |
Showing 12 of 62 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 Roxboro | 13,139 | 0 | 0 |
| Roxboro Steam Plant | 450 | 0 | 0 |
| Mount Harmony Baptist Church | 310 | 0 | 0 |
| Northend School | 303 | 0 | 0 |
| Oak Lane Elem School | 278 | 0 | 0 |
| Zion Christian Center | 250 | 0 | 0 |
| Woodland Elem School | 237 | 0 | 0 |
| Old Country Club Steak House | 170 | 0 | 0 |
| Clement Baptist Church | 155 | 0 | 0 |
| Timberlake Baptist Church | 135 | 0 | 0 |
| Olive Branch Baptist Church | 120 | 0 | 0 |
| Timberlake MHP | 107 | 0 | 0 |
Showing the 12 largest of 46 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: 46 active water systems serve Person County. None currently has 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 Hyco River, Aarons Creek, Mayo Creek, Powells Creek, Winns Creek and 6 more as not supporting recreation. That is an official determination about the waterway, not a measurement taken today.
43 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 Person County report