Meets state standards for eating fish
Can I eat fish caught here?
North Carolina · waterway · Albemarle basin
Sandy Ridge Gut (sawyer Lake): what state assessments show
No failing determinations on record for the uses assessed.
That covers what the state assessed — not what it hasn't.
Sandy Ridge Gut (sawyer Lake) in the Albemarle 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
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)
NC30-16-20-2
What the record doesn’t establish
- Whether Sandy Ridge Gut (sawyer Lake) is safe for swimming — the state hasn't assessed it for recreation 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 Sandy Ridge Gut (sawyer Lake)?
The state has not rated Sandy Ridge Gut (sawyer Lake) for swimming — that's a gap in the record, not a clean result.
Can you eat fish caught in Sandy Ridge Gut (sawyer Lake)?
The state's most recent assessment found Sandy Ridge Gut (sawyer Lake) meets its standards for eating fish caught there.
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
| 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 Albemarle basin
Go deeper
Search an address near Sandy Ridge Gut (sawyer Lake) to see how it connects — what drains toward it, monitoring-station samples, and permitted operations in its watershed.
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