The eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) is an ecologically and commercially important species, providing a series of ecosystem functions (erosion control, filtration, habitat, nutrient cycling). This study focuses on the dynamic interaction between oysters and background water quality. Through filtration and enhancement of sedimentation around reefs, oysters have been shown to reduce particulate load in the water column. However, oyster condition and health are also closely linked to water quality conditions, especially total suspended solids (TSS) and sedimentation rates. This suggests a possible relationship between background water quality, general oyster reef characteristics (density, percent cover, size demography, and rugosity) and measures of oyster condition, such as soft tissue dry weight, volume, and shell characteristics. Data were collected during two sampling periods in three tidal creeks in southeast North Carolina that vary in background water quality characteristics. Sampling occurred during summer (July/ August 2005) and winter (December 2005/ January 2006). All sampling was conducted in the middle section of the creeks, where tidal regime and salinity were similar among sites. Condition index was performed on fifteen randomly selected oysters in two different size classes per creek using a form of Hopkins’ formula. Water quality data and information on watershed development was available through a long term monitoring study conducted by the New Hanover Tidal Creeks Program. I expected condition and metric values would be higher in the least impacted creek, and lower in the most impacted creek. However, metrics used for reef characterization showed no consistent relationship with background water quality. Patterns among creeks varied depending on the metric examined, though the least impacted creek did show a trend towards higher metric values in the summer sampling. Condition showed no significant relationship to background water quality, though it followed the expected trend. These results indicate that parameters other than those studied, like disease, may have influenced the oyster populations. They also indicate condition index is important to use with reef metrics to monitor oyster populations as it picks up trends not seen in the reef metrics.