North Carolina · county
Two things here need attention.
Two things could not be determined from the record.
Public records for Tyrrell County cover 48 named waterways across 23 sub-watersheds, and 3 active water systems serving about 4,168 people. Below is what those records establish — and what they don't.
A state determination under the Clean Water Act. This creek is close to you, but your water doesn't flow from it.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| ALBEMARLE SOUND | Meets the standard | Not considered safe | DIOXIN IN FISH TISSUE, COPPER |
| Alligator River | Meets the standard | Meets the standard | COPPER |
| Bull Bay | Meets the standard | Not assessed | — |
| Deep Creek | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
| Phelps Lake | Not assessed | Not assessed | — |
| Scuppernong River | Meets the standard | Meets the standard | — |
| The Frying Pan | Not assessed | Meets the standard | — |
| Berrys Bay | Not assessed | Not considered safe | PATHOGENS |
| Callaghan Creek | Not assessed | Not considered safe | PATHOGENS |
| Cedar Creek | Not assessed | Not considered safe | PATHOGENS |
| Croatan Sound | Not assessed | Not considered safe | PATHOGENS |
| Currituck Sound | Not considered safe | Not assessed | ENTEROCOCCUS |
Showing 12 of 48 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tyrrell County Water | 3,177 | 1 | 1 |
| Columbia Water System | 891 | 0 | 0 |
| Alligator River Marina | 100 | 0 | 0 |
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: 3 active water systems serve Tyrrell 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.
State assessments under the Clean Water Act list Currituck Sound, Dowdys Bay (Poplar Branch Bay) as not supporting recreation. That is an official determination about the waterway, not a measurement taken today.
41 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 Tyrrell County report