Swain County, North Carolina: drinking water report. Swain County – Bryson City – serves about 15,000 residents in the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains.
Swain County – Bryson City – serves about 15,000 residents in the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains. Water comes from mountain streams in one of the most heavily forested and least developed counties in North Carolina. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park covers a large portion of the county.
Swain County's source water is among the cleanest in the state, protected by national park and national forest land. UCMR5 data shows no PFAS detections. According to NC DEQ's 2024 data, systems met all standards.
Swain County's water quality is excellent. National park protection keeps the watershed pristine.
Check your water for data. Our water filter guide covers 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 Swain County, NC.
The EPA places Swain County, NC in Zone 2 - a moderate-risk category, with a predicted average indoor radon level between 2 and 4 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.
39% of homes in Swain County, NC were built before 1980, and 6% 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 Swain County, NC averages 6 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
2 public water systems serving Swain 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. 1 water systems serving Swain County, NC carry a health-based EPA Safe Drinking Water Act violation.
| Most-cited violation type | Systems affected |
|---|---|
| Haloacetic Acids (HAA5) | 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.