North Carolina · county
One thing here needs attention.
Two things could not be determined from the record.
Public records for Swain County cover 210 named waterways across 40 sub-watersheds, and 56 active water systems serving about 10,163 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baskins Creek | Not considered safe | Not assessed | ESCHERICHIA COLI (E. COLI), OTHER ANTHROPOGENIC SUBSTRATE ALTERATIONS |
| Dudley Creek | Not considered safe | Not assessed | ALTERATION IN STREAM-SIDE OR LITTORAL VEGETATIVE COVERS, ESCHERICHIA COLI (E. COLI) |
| West Prong Little Pigeon River | Not considered safe | Not assessed | ALTERATION IN STREAM-SIDE OR LITTORAL VEGETATIVE COVERS, ESCHERICHIA COLI (E. COLI) |
| Abrams Creek | Not considered safe | Not assessed | MERCURY, ESCHERICHIA COLI (E. COLI) |
| Beech Branch | Meets the standard | Not assessed | ALTERATION IN STREAM-SIDE OR LITTORAL VEGETATIVE COVERS |
| Bradley Creek | Not considered safe | Not assessed | FECAL COLIFORM |
| Buck Fork | Meets the standard | Not assessed | PH |
| Caler Fork Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | FISH BIOASSESSMENTS |
| Cannon Creek | Meets the standard | Not assessed | PH |
| Chilhowee Reservoir | Not considered safe | Not assessed | MERCURY |
| Eagle Rocks Prong | Meets the standard | Not assessed | PH |
| Goshen Prong | Meets the standard | Not assessed | PH |
Showing 12 of 210 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Town of Bryson City | 4,395 | 0 | 0 |
| Ferebee Memorial Park | 500 | 0 | 0 |
| West Swain Elem School | 450 | 1 | 1 |
| East Swain Elem School | 440 | 1 | 1 |
| Smoky MTN Country Club Estates | 318 | 0 | 0 |
| Time Out Market #23 | 300 | 0 | 0 |
| Whittier Sanitary District | 252 | 1 | 1 |
| Collins Creek Picnic Area | 200 | 0 | 0 |
| Dollar General #22714 | 200 | 0 | 0 |
| Dollar General #22423 | 200 | 0 | 0 |
| Camp Watia - Ymca | 200 | 0 | 0 |
| Timberlake Campground | 175 | 0 | 0 |
Showing the 12 largest of 56 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: 56 active water systems serve Swain County. 6 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 Baskins Creek, Dudley Creek, West Prong Little Pigeon River, Abrams Creek, Bradley Creek and 16 more as not supporting recreation. That is an official determination about the waterway, not a measurement taken today.
115 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 Swain County report