Not safe for swimming (1 of 3 assessed stretches)
Is it safe to swim here?
North Carolina · waterway · Middle Roanoke basin
Bluestone Creek: what state assessments show
Not safe for swimming. Fish here are under a consumption advisory. Does not support healthy aquatic life.
Official state determinations under the Clean Water Act — about the waterway, not measurements taken today.
Bluestone Creek in the Middle Roanoke basin is tracked by the state as 3 separately assessed stretches (most recent cycle: 2022). Below is every designated-use determination on record — and what hasn't been assessed.
Designated uses
Fish here are under a consumption advisory (1 of 3 assessed stretches)
Can I eat fish caught here?
Does not support healthy aquatic life (2 of 3 assessed stretches)
Can fish and aquatic insects live here?
Tested, but not enough information to decide
Can this water be used as a drinking-water supply?
A use the state didn't report is omitted rather than shown as passing. "Never assessed" means unknown — never clean.
Listed causes
- dissolved oxygen (organic enrichment/oxygen depletion)
- mercury in fish tissue (mercury)
- pcbs in fish tissue (polychlorinated biphenyls (pcbs))
- benthic macroinvertebrates bioassessments (cause unknown - impaired biota)
- escherichia coli (e. coli) (pathogens)
A listed cause names what the assessment found in the water. It is not an attribution to any specific facility or source.
Assessed stretches
The state tracks this waterway as 3 assessment units — a stretch can fail a standard while another meets it.
Assessment unit IDs (3)
VAW-L77L_BST01A06 · VAW-L77R_BST01A98 · VAW-L77R_BST02A06
What the record doesn’t establish
- What today's water looks like — assessments are determinations made on multi-year cycles, not live measurements.
Common questions
Is it safe to swim in Bluestone Creek?
The state has determined Bluestone Creek is not considered safe for swimming (1 of 3 assessed stretches). That is an official Clean Water Act determination about the waterway, not a measurement taken today.
Can you eat fish caught in Bluestone Creek?
The state has determined fish caught in Bluestone Creek are under a consumption advisory (1 of 3 assessed stretches) — it doesn't meet standards for eating the fish caught in it.
Why is Bluestone Creek listed as impaired?
State assessments list: dissolved oxygen, mercury in fish tissue, pcbs in fish tissue, benthic macroinvertebrates bioassessments, escherichia coli (e. coli). A listed cause names the problem the assessment found — it does not attribute it to any specific source.
Sources
| 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 |
| 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.
Also in the Middle Roanoke basin
Go deeper
Search an address near Bluestone Creek to see how it connects — what drains toward it, monitoring-station samples, and permitted operations in its watershed.
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