Swim Guide

Get your weekly water quality alerts here!

swim guide here

Want to get weekly water quality alerts straight to your phone? Text “SWIM” to 833-686-5322!

EN ESPAÑOL

Sound Rivers’ Neuse and Pamlico-Tar Riverkeepers work with interns and volunteers to monitor water quality sites in the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico watersheds. Our sites are sampled weekly from late May through the end of August. Sites are monitored for E. coli bacteria in freshwater and enterococci bacteria in salt water.

As soon as results of our monitoring are available they will be posted to here, can be found at the Swim Guide website, using the smartphone app, on our Facebook page, and will be announced on Public Radio East between 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. each Friday. You can also get weekly alerts during the summer via text (text SWIM to 833-686-5322 to join our text alert list).

CONDITIONS ON

Aug. 30, 2024

It’s a wrap for the 2024 Swim Guide season!

The 2025 season of weekly water-quality testing will start up again Memorial Day weekend of 2025. Until then, we’ll be delivering results from select sites across the Neuse and Tar-Pamlico on a monthly basis. Keep checking back!

UPPER NEUSE

All sites passed this week. Launches at Beaver Dam, Barton Creek boat ramp, Poole Road and the Neuse Golf Club in Clayton were not tested this week.

LOWER NEUSE

Two sites failed this week: Upper Broad Creek at Black Beard Sailing Club and Slocum Creek in Havelock.

Spring Garden boat ramp and Rice Creek off the Bay River was not tested this week.

TAR-PAMLICO

One site failed this week: Cotton Patch Landing on Blounts Creek.

Bonner’s Point and Plum Point in Bath and Wright’s Creek in Belhaven were not tested this week.

Get Swim Guide Results

Swim Guide volunteers sample each site on Thursdays throughout the summer and results are available by Friday afternoon. They will be posted to this page, can be found at the Swim Guide website, using the app, on our Facebook page, and will be announced on Public Radio East between 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. each Friday. You can also get the results via weekly text alerts during the summer — just text SWIM to 833-686-5322 to join our text alert list!

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Water Quality Criteria

Sound Rivers uses the North Carolina and EPA water-quality criteria for contact recreation. Sites are marked green when the last sample was at healthy levels of bacteria. Sites are marked red when the last sample was above the criteria, or unhealthy levels of bacteria. Sites are marked grey when there are no current results or there is no available information.

E. coli is a type of bacteria found in the intestines of people and other animals, and is a good indicator of recent fecal contamination. While most types of these bacteria are harmless, some types can make us sick or cause more severe gastrointestinal issues in more sensitive groups.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Marine Fisheries Recreational Water Quality Program does additional testing in the region. Those results are also incorporated into the sites listed on the Swim Guide website and app.