Not safe for swimming (1 of 4 assessed stretches)
Is it safe to swim here?
North Carolina · waterway · Pamlico basin
Pungo River: what state assessments show
Not safe for swimming. Does not support healthy aquatic life.
Official state determinations under the Clean Water Act — about the waterway, not measurements taken today.
Pungo River in the Pamlico basin is tracked by the state as 4 separately assessed stretches (most recent cycle: 2022). Below is every designated-use determination on record — and what hasn't been assessed.
Designated uses
Meets state standards for eating fish
Can I eat fish caught here?
Does not support healthy aquatic life (1 of 4 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
- enterococcus (pathogens)
- 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 4 assessment units — a stretch can fail a standard while another meets it.
Assessment unit IDs (4)
NC29-34-(12)a · NC29-34-(12)b · NC29-34-(38) · NC29-34-(5)
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 Pungo River?
The state has determined Pungo River is not considered safe for swimming (1 of 4 assessed stretches). That is an official Clean Water Act determination about the waterway, not a measurement taken today.
Can you eat fish caught in Pungo River?
The state's most recent assessment found Pungo River meets its standards for eating fish caught there.
Why is Pungo River listed as impaired?
State assessments list: enterococcus, 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 Pamlico basin
Go deeper
Search an address near Pungo River to see how it connects — what drains toward it, monitoring-station samples, and permitted operations in its watershed.
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