Not safe for swimming
Is it safe to swim here?
North Carolina · waterway · South Fork Holston basin
Little 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.
Little Creek in the South Fork Holston basin is tracked by the state as 3 separately assessed stretches (most recent cycle: 2024). 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 (1 of 3 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
- alteration in stream-side or littoral vegetative covers (habitat alterations)
- escherichia coli (e. coli) (pathogens)
- nutrients
- physical substrate habitat alterations (habitat alterations)
- sedimentation/siltation (sediment)
- fecal coliform (pathogens)
- pcbs in fish tissue (polychlorinated biphenyls (pcbs))
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)
TN06010102042_0400 · VAS-O07R_LTL01A96 · VAS-O07R_XDR01A06
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 Little Creek?
The state has determined Little Creek is not considered safe for swimming. That is an official Clean Water Act determination about the waterway, not a measurement taken today.
Can you eat fish caught in Little Creek?
The state has determined fish caught in Little 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 Little Creek listed as impaired?
State assessments list: alteration in stream-side or littoral vegetative covers, escherichia coli (e. coli), nutrients, physical substrate habitat alterations, sedimentation/siltation, fecal coliform. 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 South Fork Holston basin
Go deeper
Search an address near Little Creek to see how it connects — what drains toward it, monitoring-station samples, and permitted operations in its watershed.
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