Not safe for swimming (1 of 3 assessed stretches)
Is it safe to swim here?
North Carolina · waterway · Meherrin basin
Fontaine Creek (aka Fountains Creek): what state assessments show
Not safe for swimming. Fish here are under a consumption advisory.
Official state determinations under the Clean Water Act — about the waterway, not measurements taken today.
Fontaine Creek (aka Fountains Creek) in the Meherrin 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 (2 of 3 assessed stretches)
Can I eat fish caught here?
Supports healthy aquatic life
Can fish and aquatic insects live here?
A use the state didn't report is omitted rather than shown as passing. "Never assessed" means unknown — never clean.
Listed causes
- mercury in fish tissue (mercury)
- 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)
VAP-K11R_FON01A10 · VAP-K11R_FON03A98 · VAP-K11R_FON04A00
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 Fontaine Creek (aka Fountains Creek)?
The state has determined Fontaine Creek (aka Fountains 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 Fontaine Creek (aka Fountains Creek)?
The state has determined fish caught in Fontaine Creek (aka Fountains Creek) are under a consumption advisory (2 of 3 assessed stretches) — it doesn't meet standards for eating the fish caught in it.
Why is Fontaine Creek (aka Fountains Creek) listed as impaired?
State assessments list: mercury in fish tissue, 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 Meherrin basin
Go deeper
Search an address near Fontaine Creek (aka Fountains Creek) to see how it connects — what drains toward it, monitoring-station samples, and permitted operations in its watershed.
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