WHAT’S BEYOND THE TAP

North Carolina · waterway · Little Pee Dee basin

Shoe Heel Creek (big Shoe Heel Creek)(maxton Pond): what state assessments show

No failing determinations on record for the uses assessed.

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

Shoe Heel Creek (big Shoe Heel Creek)(maxton Pond) in the Little Pee Dee basin is tracked by the state as 2 separately assessed stretches (most recent cycle: 2022). Below is every designated-use determination on record — and what hasn't been assessed.

Designated uses

Swimming & recreation

Meets state standards for swimming

Is it safe to swim here?

Aquatic life

Tested, but not enough information to decide

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

The state tracks this waterway as 2 assessment units — a stretch can fail a standard while another meets it.

Assessment unit IDs (2)

NC14-34a · NC14-34b

What the record doesn’t establish

  • Whether fish caught in Shoe Heel Creek (big Shoe Heel Creek)(maxton Pond) 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 Shoe Heel Creek (big Shoe Heel Creek)(maxton Pond)?

The state's most recent assessment found Shoe Heel Creek (big Shoe Heel Creek)(maxton Pond) 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 Shoe Heel Creek (big Shoe Heel Creek)(maxton Pond)?

The state has not rated Shoe Heel Creek (big Shoe Heel Creek)(maxton Pond) 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 Little Pee Dee basin

Go deeper

Search an address near Shoe Heel Creek (big Shoe Heel Creek)(maxton Pond) to see how it connects — what drains toward it, monitoring-station samples, and permitted operations in its watershed.

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