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North Carolina · waterway · Hiwassee basin

Hiwassee River (chatuge Lake Below Elevation 1928): what state assessments show

No failing determinations on record for the uses assessed.

That covers what the state assessed — not what it hasn't.

Hiwassee River (chatuge Lake Below Elevation 1928) in the Hiwassee basin is tracked by the state as a single assessed stretch (most recent cycle: 2022). Below is every designated-use determination on record — and what hasn't been assessed.

Designated uses

Aquatic life

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.

Assessed stretches

One assessment unit covers this waterway here.

Assessment unit IDs (1)

NC1-(1)

What the record doesn’t establish

  • Whether Hiwassee River (chatuge Lake Below Elevation 1928) is safe for swimming — the state hasn't assessed it for recreation here.
  • Whether fish caught in Hiwassee River (chatuge Lake Below Elevation 1928) 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 Hiwassee River (chatuge Lake Below Elevation 1928)?

The state has not rated Hiwassee River (chatuge Lake Below Elevation 1928) for swimming — that's a gap in the record, not a clean result.

Can you eat fish caught in Hiwassee River (chatuge Lake Below Elevation 1928)?

The state has not rated Hiwassee River (chatuge Lake Below Elevation 1928) for fish consumption — unknown, not clean.

How current is this assessment?

The most recent reporting cycle on record is 2022. States assess waters under the Clean Water Act on multi-year cycles, so conditions can change between assessments. The sources table shows when this snapshot was retrieved.

Sources

DatasetAgency versionRetrieved
EPA/state ATTAINS waterway assessmentsATTAINS_Assessment ArcGIS snapshot (gispub.epa.gov)2026-08-15
ATTAINS waterway geometryATTAINS_Assessment ArcGIS lines + areas (gispub.epa.gov)2026-08-16
USGS watershed boundariesUSGS WBD via National Map MapServer2026-08-15

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 Hiwassee basin

Go deeper

Search an address near Hiwassee River (chatuge Lake Below Elevation 1928) to see how it connects — what drains toward it, monitoring-station samples, and permitted operations in its watershed.

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