North Carolina · water system · PWSID NC0197030
Two things here need attention.
One more thing is worth knowing, and one could not be determined from the record.
What EPA and state records show about this community water system — compliance, PFAS testing, lead sampling, and where its water comes from. Serving about 8,486 people in Wilkes County.
Purchased water is treated by the seller before it arrives, so the seller's compliance record travels with the water it sells.
Official record for your water system · U.S. EPA — Safe Drinking Water Act compliance records · retrieved 2026-08-16 · source
A health-based violation means a contaminant limit or a required treatment step wasn't met.
Official record for your water system · U.S. EPA — Safe Drinking Water Act compliance records · retrieved 2026-08-16 · source
Most PFAS compounds tested have no federal drinking-water limit — detection is not the same as exceeding a standard.
Measured in your water system · U.S. EPA — UCMR5 nationwide PFAS monitoring · retrieved 2026-08-15 · source
Lead: latest 90th-percentile result 0 ppb — below the 10 ppb action level (sampled 2025-12-31, 4 results in the 10-year window).
The 90th-percentile result means 9 out of 10 sampled homes were at or below this level. It measures the water system's corrosion control — it cannot tell you whether your own home's plumbing adds lead. Results older than 10 years, future-dated compliance periods, and physically implausible values are excluded.
29 PFAS compounds tested under EPA's UCMR5 program; 1 detected.
UCMR5 sampling (2023–2026) at entry points to the distribution system. 'Not detected' means below the reporting limit (~4 ppt for PFOA/PFOS), not zero. A result above a future MCL is not a violation today — compliance deadlines are 2029 (2031 extension proposed). These results describe treated water leaving the plant — not the river or lake this system draws from.
Surface water.
Buys water from Town of North Wilkesboro, whose recent record shows no unresolved health-based violations.
Buys water from Mulberry-Fairplains WTR Assoc — which has 1 unresolved health-based violation on record. Purchased water is treated by the seller, so the seller's record travels with it.
EPA compliance records list 1 health-based violation since 2021, 1 without a recorded resolution. Administrative (paperwork) records are counted separately and never added in.
Yes — 29 PFAS compounds under EPA's UCMR5 program, with 1 detected. Samples are taken at entry points to the distribution system — treated water, not source water.
EPA records list about 8,486 people served in Wilkes. Service-area boundaries have known errors — a water bill is the ground truth for any single address.
| 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.
Search any address this system serves for the full report — the waters around it, what's permitted upstream, and every term explained.
Search an address