Meets state standards for swimming
Is it safe to swim here?
North Carolina · waterway · Coastal Carolina basin
Intracoastal Waterway: what state assessments show
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.
Intracoastal Waterway in the Coastal Carolina basin is tracked by the state as 21 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
Can I eat fish caught here?
Does not support healthy aquatic life (1 of 21 assessed stretches)
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
- dissolved oxygen (organic enrichment/oxygen depletion)
- 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 21 assessment units — a stretch can fail a standard while another meets it.
Assessment unit IDs (21)
NC15-25d · NC15-25f · NC15-25g · NC15-25i · NC15-25j · NC15-25k · NC15-25l · NC15-25m · NC15-25n · NC15-25o1 · NC15-25p · NC15-25q · NC15-25r1 · NC15-25r2 · NC15-25r3 · NC15-25s · NC15-25t1 · NC15-25t2 · NC15-25t3 · NC15-25t4 · NC15-25u
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 Intracoastal Waterway?
The state's most recent assessment found Intracoastal Waterway meets its standards for swimming. That is a determination about the assessed stretches, not a guarantee about any spot on any day.
Can you eat fish caught in Intracoastal Waterway?
The state has determined fish caught in Intracoastal Waterway are under a consumption advisory — it doesn't meet standards for eating the fish caught in it.
Why is Intracoastal Waterway listed as impaired?
State assessments list: dissolved oxygen, pathogens. 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 Coastal Carolina basin
Go deeper
Search an address near Intracoastal Waterway to see how it connects — what drains toward it, monitoring-station samples, and permitted operations in its watershed.
Search an address