Tested, but not enough information to decide
Is it safe to swim here?
North Carolina · waterway · Deep basin
Cotton Creek: what state assessments show
Does not support healthy aquatic life.
Official state determinations under the Clean Water Act — about the waterway, not measurements taken today.
Cotton Creek in the Deep basin is tracked by the state as 5 separately assessed stretches (most recent cycle: 2022). Below is every designated-use determination on record — and what hasn't been assessed.
Designated uses
Does not support healthy aquatic life
Can fish and aquatic insects live here?
Meets standards as a drinking-water source
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
- benthic macroinvertebrates bioassessments (cause unknown - impaired biota)
- copper (metals (other than mercury))
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 5 assessment units — a stretch can fail a standard while another meets it.
Assessment unit IDs (5)
NC17-26-5-3a · NC17-26-5-3b1 · NC17-26-5-3b2 · NC17-26-5-3b3 · NC17-26-5-3c
What the record doesn’t establish
- Whether fish caught in Cotton Creek are safe to eat — no fish-consumption assessment on record here.
- 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 Cotton Creek?
The state has not rated Cotton Creek for swimming — that's a gap in the record, not a clean result.
Can you eat fish caught in Cotton Creek?
The state has not rated Cotton Creek for fish consumption — unknown, not clean.
Why is Cotton Creek listed as impaired?
State assessments list: benthic macroinvertebrates bioassessments, copper. 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 Deep basin
Go deeper
Search an address near Cotton Creek to see how it connects — what drains toward it, monitoring-station samples, and permitted operations in its watershed.
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