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 33222!

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.

CONDITIONS ON

Feb. 29, 2024

Weekly Swim Guide testing ended for the summer of 2023, however, we are now testing select sites on a monthly basis. Sites being tested monthly on the Neuse include Rolling View on Falls Lake; Buffaloe Road and Poole Road in Raleigh; Clayton River Walk; Busco Beach and the Neuse River boat ramp in Goldsboro; the boating access and Cliffs of the Neuse State Park’s swim area in Seven Springs; the N.C. Highway 11 boat ramp in Kinston; Lawson Creek in New Bern; Slocum Creek in Havelock; and the Midyette Street boat ramp in Oriental. Sites on the Tar-Pamlico are Stith-Talbert Park in Rocky Mount; Wildwood Park and Port Terminal in Greenville; and Havens Gardens and Pamlico Plantation in Washington.

Swim Guide sampling occurs on the last Thursday of each month, and results are posted on this page the following day.

UPPER NEUSE

Poole Road in Raleigh, the River Walk in Clayton, the boat access in Seven Springs and Busco Beach in Goldsboro failed to meet recreational water-quality standards.

LOWER NEUSE

All sites passed this month.

TAR-PAMLICO

Havens Gardens in Washington failed.

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 33222 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.

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the Summer of 2023 Swim Guide!