WHAT’S BEYOND THE TAP

North Carolina · county

Water quality in Scotland County, North Carolina

One thing here needs attention.

Two things could not be determined from the record.

Public records for Scotland County cover 54 named waterways across 20 sub-watersheds, and 18 active water systems serving about 26,384 people. Below is what those records establish — and what they don't.

54waterways on record
1not considered safe for swimming
0under fish-consumption advisories
19never assessed at all
18water systems
1with an unresolved health-based violation

What the records flag

Needs attention

PD-371 is not considered safe for swimming

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.

Listed cause
DISSOLVED OXYGEN
Listed cause
ESCHERICHIA COLI (E. COLI)

Official determination, waterway near you · U.S. EPA / state agency — ATTAINS assessed waters

Rivers, creeks & lakes

WaterwaySwimmingEating the fishListed causes
PD-371Not considered safeNot assessedDISSOLVED OXYGEN, ESCHERICHIA COLI (E. COLI)
PD-713Not assessedNot assessedBENTHIC MACROINVERTEBRATES
RL-05398Not assessedNot assessedCHLOROPHYLL-A, PHOSPHORUS, TOTAL
RL-09100Not assessedNot assessedCHLOROPHYLL-A, PH
Big Bear BranchNot assessedNot assessed
Bones Fork Creek (Lake Bagget)Not assessedNot assessed
Buffalo CreekNot assessedNot assessed
Camerons LakeNot assessedNot assessed
Chock Creek (Gibson Pond)Not assessedNot assessed
Drowning CreekMeets the standardNot assessed
Gum SwampNot assessedNot assessed
Gum Swamp Creek (Lytchs Pond)Not assessedNot assessed

Showing 12 of 54 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

SystemServesHealth-based violations since 2021Without recorded resolution
City of Laurinburg18,28800
Scotland Co Water-South1,90500
Scotland Co Water - North1,21900
Laurinburg-Maxton Airport1,04900
Scotland Co Water - Gillis Hill96500
Town of Wagram96522
Town of Gibson58900
Scotland Co Water - Barnes Bridge58400
Scotland Co Water - Malloy RD33000
Xalt Church10000
Cruz N Mart7500
Peace True Holiness Church7500

Showing the 12 largest of 18 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

  • 19 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 Scotland 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: 18 active water systems serve Scotland County. 1 of them currently has an unresolved health-based violation on record. Health-based violations are counted separately from paperwork violations, which make up most records.

Which waterways in Scotland County are not considered safe for swimming?

State assessments under the Clean Water Act list PD-371 as not supporting recreation. That is an official determination about the waterway, not a measurement taken today.

44 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

DatasetAgency versionRetrieved
EPA/state ATTAINS waterway assessmentsATTAINS_Assessment ArcGIS snapshot (gispub.epa.gov)2026-08-15
ATTAINS waterway geometryATTAINS_Assessment ArcGIS lines + areas (gispub.epa.gov)2026-08-16
Census TIGER county boundariesCensus TIGERweb Counties (current vintage)2026-08-16
NC DEQ PFAS monitoringNC DEQ DWR EQuIS export, samples through 2025-07-292026-08-17
Census TIGER place boundariesCensus TIGERweb Places (Incorporated + CDP, current vintage)2026-08-16
EPA water system service areasEPA PWS Service Areas v3 (hosted layer, item 80c6912ef14f46e480f5afd807767b4b)2026-08-15
EPA Safe Drinking Water Act compliance recordsECHO SDWA quarterly bulk download2026-08-16
EPA standards & benchmarks2026-08 curation2026-08-15
EPA UCMR5 PFAS monitoringUCMR5 occurrence data (collections through 2025-12-10)2026-08-15
USGS watershed boundariesUSGS WBD via National Map MapServer2026-08-15

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 Scotland County report