Many of the sediment and soil samples collected from the affected area of the river have shown some high levels of contamination above the United States Environmental Protection Agency - EPA Region 9 Regional Screening Levels (RSLs) for residential soils. Region 9 RSLs are used by DHEC because they are the most conservative levels available. This means that if the TLM-impacted sediments existed on dry land as surface soil many of the components of the contamination would exceed the levels considered safe for residential areas.