Cape Fear River, Beach Area Adjacent To Southport Municipal is a saltwater beach in Brunswick County, North Carolina. Across 107 bacteria samples collected between 2021 and 2025 at nearby monitoring stations, it earns a Beach Safety Grade of C — Fair.
About 10% of samples at Cape Fear River, Beach Area Adjacent To Southport Municipal exceeded the EPA Beach Action Value of 104 CFU/100 mL for Enterococcus — the threshold at which water managers typically post a swimming advisory. In practice that means the safe-swimming limit was sometimes crossed here over the monitored period. Bacteria samples occasionally exceed the safe-swimming threshold — check the latest advisory before swimming.
Read this grade as directional rather than settled: it draws on a single monitoring station. That is enough to classify how the water has behaved, but not enough to separate this beach from another a grade away — a beach graded from thousands of samples at several stations is a firmer read. As more results are reported, the grade may shift.
Cape Fear River, Beach Area Adjacent To Southport Municipal was not under a swimming advisory in the most recent EPA snapshot. Conditions can change quickly after heavy rain or high runoff, so it's still worth checking the current advisory the day you go.