Brunswick County lies south of Wilmington, home to about 150,000 residents. Brunswick County Public Utilities draws from the Cape Fear River and the Lower…
Brunswick County lies south of Wilmington, home to about 150,000 residents. Brunswick County Public Utilities draws from the Cape Fear River and the Lower Cape Fear Water and Sewer Authority. Like New Hanover County upstream, Brunswick is affected by the Chemours PFAS contamination in the Cape Fear River.
Brunswick County's intake on the Cape Fear River sits downstream of both the Chemours facility and Wilmington's discharge returns. This positioning means the county receives the accumulated PFAS load of the entire Cape Fear River basin. According to NC DEQ monitoring, GenX and related compounds have been detected at Brunswick County's intake consistently since testing began.
The county has invested in treatment infrastructure, including activated carbon, to address PFAS. UCMR5 data confirms ongoing detections. Brunswick County's rapid growth as a retirement and resort destination has increased both demand and public attention to water quality.
Brunswick County's downstream position on the Cape Fear River means PFAS is a persistent concern. Treatment helps but may not eliminate all compounds.
Check your water for current PFAS data. Reverse osmosis provides the most thorough household-level removal. Our water filter guide covers certified options. Pull your detailed report, and visit our North Carolina page for statewide data.
Drinking water is one exposure route. These federal datasets also cover Brunswick County, NC.
The EPA places Brunswick County, NC in Zone 3 - the EPA's lowest-risk category, with a predicted average indoor radon level below 2 pCi/L. Zone maps predict an area's radon potential from geology and existing indoor readings; they say nothing about a specific house. Testing is the only way to know your own level.
15% of homes in Brunswick County, NC were built before 1980, and 2% before 1950. Residential lead paint was banned in 1978, so housing age is the strongest available proxy for lead-paint exposure. This describes the county's housing stock, not any one home.
Modelled annual fine-particle pollution (PM2.5) in Brunswick County, NC averages 6.8 µg/m³, within the EPA's annual standard of 9 µg/m³. These are CDC modelled county estimates rather than readings from a specific monitor.
How radon zones work · Air quality by county · Lead exposure guide
10 public water systems serving Brunswick County, NC have EPA lead testing on record. The reported lead sample skews toward systems that already flagged a problem, so its exceedance rate is not directly comparable with other areas. 5 water systems serving Brunswick County, NC carry a health-based EPA Safe Drinking Water Act violation.
| Most-cited violation type | Systems affected |
|---|---|
| Lead and Copper Rule | 3 |
| Lead and Copper Rule Revisions | 2 |
| Coliform (pre-TCR) | 1 |
| Interim Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule | 1 |
Source: EPA Lead and Copper Rule 90th-percentile tap sampling and EPA SDWIS Safe Drinking Water Act enforcement records, aggregated from the public water systems serving this county. Figures are counts of water systems, not a test of any individual home or tap.