Palmetto Environmental Consulting

Palmetto Environmental Consulting is an environmental consultant in Lexington, SC. The firm is a small natural resources consulting company whose primary focus is wetland science, and it has performed hundreds of wetland delineations and other wetland assessments for clients. Its work covers wetland and stream assessments, wetland and stream restoration and mitigation planning, permitting, expert consultation and testimony, GPS and GIS approximations and mapping, and habitat and baseline assessments. The firm was founded in 2007 by business partners Chris Lake and Robert Bunch, both certified Professional Wetland Scientists through the Society of Wetland Scientists, with a combined 35 years of experience in the natural resources field. Services have been performed across every physiographic region of the Carolinas and Georgia, on sites ranging from one acre to more than 4,000 acres. Clients include individual landowners, engineering companies, commercial and residential developers, county and city governments, and regional and national corporations. The firm coordinates between clients and regulatory agencies to obtain permits, and its personnel include former regulators. It has also helped clients resolve wetland violations and obtain After-the-Fact permits where applicable. Mitigation services cover site selection, design, planning, permitting, construction management, and monitoring, and the firm assists clients pursuing prospective mitigation banks. For clients considering a property purchase, a preliminary wetland determination can be provided quickly. Habitat assessments have been performed to support permit applications and to determine potential impact to protected species, and baseline surveys are performed for conservation easements. Chris Lake serves as president and Robert Bunch as vice president. The firm maintains close communication with the US Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies on the regulation of wetlands and other jurisdictional waters, and it provides objective, scientific information using current standards, including expert testimony in court cases involving natural resource issues. Field data is collected with a Trimble GeoExplorer 6000 Series sub-meter GPS unit and analyzed with ArcGIS 10. Palmetto Environmental Consulting is based in Lexington, SC, with a mailing address of Post Office Box 1730 and 710 West Main Street, #1730.

Services:

• Habitat and baseline assessments
• Phase I Environmental Site Assessments
• Protected species assessments
• Section 404/401 (wetland) permitting