Questions & Answers
Frequently Asked Questions
The questions we actually get asked, answered by an ISA Certified Arborist and FSESCI Qualified Inspector who does the work. Trees and tree risk, erosion and sediment control, stormwater compliance, permits, and what it is like to work with LES.
About Local Environmental Services
Who LES is, what we are certified to do, and where we work.
What is Local Environmental Services?
Local Environmental Services (LES) is a veteran-owned environmental field services contractor based in Lake Mary, Florida, serving Seminole, Orange, Lake, and Volusia counties. LES combines three disciplines that are normally split across separate subcontractors: construction stormwater compliance, erosion and sediment control installation and maintenance, and ISA Certified Arborist tree services. The company is owner-operated by Michael Feltner and works for homebuilders, developers, civil contractors, commercial property owners, HOAs and apartment communities, and municipalities.
What certifications does LES hold?
Michael Feltner, owner-operator of Local Environmental Services, is an ISA Certified Arborist (FL-9716A), an FSESCI Qualified Inspector for Florida stormwater, erosion and sedimentation control, and Florida GI-BMP certified (Certificate No. 35280). LES is also a veteran-owned business. Those credentials are held by the person doing the work rather than by an office, which is the practical difference between an inspection report signed by a certified professional and one signed on their behalf.
What areas does LES serve in Central Florida?
LES serves Seminole, Orange, Lake, and Volusia counties from a base in Lake Mary, Florida. That includes Sanford, Lake Mary, Longwood, Oviedo, Winter Springs, Casselberry, and Altamonte Springs in Seminole County; Orlando, Winter Park, Apopka, Ocoee, Windermere, and Maitland in Orange County; Clermont, Mount Dora, Eustis, Tavares, and Leesburg in Lake County; and Daytona Beach, Port Orange, Ormond Beach, New Smyrna Beach, Deltona, DeLand, Orange City, and DeBary in Volusia County.
Is LES an engineering firm?
No. LES is a field execution and certified inspection contractor, not an engineering or surveying firm. We install, maintain, inspect, and document erosion and stormwater controls and provide ISA Certified Arborist assessments and reporting. We do not produce engineered design, sealed drawings, or survey products, and we coordinate our work with the project's licensed engineers, surveyors, and design team. Content on this site is general information, not engineered design, legal advice, or a regulatory determination.
Does LES work for homeowners and residential properties?
Yes, though the bulk of LES's work is commercial, development, and multifamily. On the residential side the most common requests are arborist tree risk assessments and hazard tree documentation, drainage and French drain work, and shoreline or slope erosion repair on lakefront and pond-front property. Construction stormwater compliance work is generally tied to permitted development sites rather than individual homes.
What makes LES different from a typical erosion control or tree company?
Two things. First, the credentials sit with the owner who is on site, so the person assessing the tree or the BMP is the certified professional, not a salesperson relaying findings. Second, LES both plans and installs. Most projects otherwise involve a consultant who writes a report and never returns and a crew that installs to a plan they did not read. LES delivers the assessment, the installation, the ongoing maintenance, and the photo-documented record as one accountable scope.
Trees, Tree Risk & Arborist Services
Tree failures, inspections, permits, and construction tree protection in Central Florida.
Why do healthy-looking trees fall in Florida?
Because tree health and tree structure are separate questions. A tree keeps a full green canopy as long as the outer layer of wood carrying water and nutrients is alive, while the heartwood in the center of the stem, which carries the structural load, can be almost completely consumed by decay. Decay works from the inside out, entering through old wounds, torn limbs, or bad pruning cuts, so a tree can be genuinely healthy and structurally hollow at the same time. Central Florida's heat and humidity accelerate that decay, and past storm damage supplies the wounds it starts from.
How often should trees be inspected on a commercial or apartment property in Florida?
An annual assessment by an ISA Certified Arborist is a reasonable baseline for any property with mature trees standing over parking, walkways, playgrounds, or buildings, plus an inspection after any storm that causes visible damage on the property. Trees already flagged with a condition worth monitoring typically get a shorter reinspection interval of six to twelve months. The inspection record matters as much as the inspection, because it establishes when the property looked and what it found.
Who is liable when a tree falls on a car or a person in Florida?
It is fact-specific, but Florida property owners generally owe a duty of reasonable care to tenants and lawful visitors, which includes keeping common areas in reasonably safe condition. A central question is whether the owner knew or reasonably should have known about the hazardous condition. A defect that a qualified arborist would have identified on a routine inspection can support a should-have-known finding, and having no inspection program at all does not improve an owner's position. This is general information from an arborist, not legal advice; discuss specific exposure with your attorney and insurance carrier.
Do I need a permit to remove a tree in Central Florida?
Usually yes on commercial, multifamily, and HOA common-area property, and often on residential property depending on the tree and the jurisdiction. Every county and every incorporated city administers its own tree ordinance, and thresholds are typically written in DBH (diameter at breast height, measured 4.5 feet above ground). Unincorporated Volusia County, for example, protects trees at 6 inches DBH and larger on non-residential property and can treat live oaks and bald cypress at 36 inches DBH and larger as historic trees requiring committee approval. Confirm whether the county or the city has authority over your parcel before scheduling any removal.
Does Florida law let me remove a dangerous tree without a permit?
Only in a narrow case. Section 163.045, Florida Statutes, bars local governments from requiring a permit, fee, or mitigation for removing a tree that poses an unacceptable risk, but it applies only to residential property, which the statute defines as a single-family detached building on a lot actively used for single-family residential purposes. Apartment complexes, condos, HOA common areas, mobile home parks, and commercial property do not qualify. Even where it applies, it requires documentation from an ISA Certified Arborist or a Florida licensed landscape architect prepared under the ISA Best Management Practices for Tree Risk Assessment.
What is a tree risk assessment?
A tree risk assessment is a structured evaluation under the International Society of Arboriculture's published methodology that answers three questions about a tree: what is underneath it that could be struck, how likely the tree or a part of it is to fail, and how severe the consequences would be if it did. Those combine into a risk rating that drives a specific recommendation. A Level 2 assessment is the standard detailed ground-based inspection, including sounding the trunk for decay and examining the root collar, unions, cavities, and canopy.
What are the warning signs that a tree is hazardous?
The clearest signals are mushrooms, conks, or shelf fungi growing on the trunk, at a branch union, or from the ground at the base, which indicate active decay; any cavity, hole, or old wound in the trunk or a major limb; two or more large stems splitting low on the trunk with a crack or seam at the union; large dead limbs in the upper canopy; a trunk with a bulge, depression, or vertical seam; heaving or cracked soil at the base; exposed roots cut for a sidewalk or utility trench; and any tree that has already dropped a large limb. None of these confirm failure on their own, and their absence does not confirm safety.
What is a critical root zone and how close can you build to a tree?
The critical root zone is the soil area holding the roots a tree needs to stay healthy and stable. The common rule of thumb sets its radius at one foot for every inch of trunk diameter at breast height, so a 30 inch DBH oak gets a 30 foot radius, and that figure is a minimum rather than a target. Nothing should be excavated, trenched, filled, compacted, or stored inside that zone without an arborist involved. Where a utility must cross it, boring beneath the root zone does far less damage than open trenching.
Why do trees die three or four years after construction finishes?
Because a mature tree carries enough stored energy to look normal for years after losing much of its root system. Grade cuts, fill placed over roots, utility trenching, and soil compaction during construction damage the shallow absorbing roots in the top 12 to 18 inches of soil, and the resulting decline shows up as thinning canopy, small pale leaves, and upper-crown deadwood roughly three to five years later. By then the cause is rarely connected back to the construction, and the loss usually gets attributed to drought or disease.
Does LES remove trees?
LES is an arborist services firm rather than a tree removal company. Our work is assessment, inventory and mapping, tree protection planning and installation, prescribed clearance pruning, construction monitoring, and the reporting and documentation that supports permits and project files. Where an assessment concludes a tree genuinely needs to come down, we document that finding and can coordinate the removal. We do not benefit from recommending removals, which is deliberate.
Erosion & Sediment Control
Silt fence, BMPs, inspections, and keeping a site's perimeter compliant.
What is erosion and sediment control on a construction site?
Erosion control keeps soil from being detached and moved in the first place, using measures such as stabilization, matting, mulch, and vegetation. Sediment control captures soil that is already moving before it leaves the property, using measures such as silt fence, inlet protection, sediment traps, and turbidity barriers. Florida construction sites need both, and on a permitted project they are regulated controls with inspection and maintenance requirements, not optional site housekeeping.
Why does most silt fence fail inspection?
Four reasons account for nearly all of it. The fabric is surface-staked instead of trenched and backfilled, so runoff flows underneath it. It is run in straight lines instead of along the contour, which concentrates water at low points and blows the fence out. The ends are not turned back with J-hooks, so water simply travels along the fence and around it. And accumulated sediment is never removed, so the fence overtops. Any one of those is a finding an inspector can write up.
How often do erosion control BMPs have to be inspected in Florida?
Under the Florida NPDES construction stormwater permit, erosion and sediment controls generally must be inspected at least once every seven calendar days and within 24 hours of the end of a qualifying rain event, with any needed maintenance and repairs made and documented. Missing those inspections is itself a violation, separate from any physical failure of a control. The documentation is part of the requirement, not an optional record.
What happens if my site fails a stormwater inspection?
At minimum you receive a finding and a corrective action deadline. Repeated or serious failures escalate to a notice of violation, a stop-work order, and monetary penalties, which under the Clean Water Act can reach tens of thousands of dollars per day per violation. For most contractors the schedule impact of a stop-work order and the rework of controls already paid for cost more than the penalty itself, and the record follows you into the next permit review.
Who is responsible for a site's BMPs, the general contractor or the subcontractor?
The permit holder, typically the operator or general contractor, is legally responsible for the site's best management practices regardless of who physically installed them. Subcontracting the installation does not transfer the permit obligation. That is precisely why it is worth having the perimeter installed, maintained, and documented by someone who inspects this work to the standard rather than assuming a crew got it right.
When do I need a turbidity barrier?
A turbidity barrier is used when work occurs in or directly adjacent to open water, such as a lake, pond, canal, or wetland, to contain suspended sediment within the work area and keep it out of the receiving water body. It is commonly required for shoreline stabilization, dredging, outfall work, seawall and dock construction, and any in-water or bank work on a permitted project. Requirements come from the permit and the reviewing agency, so check the project's conditions rather than assuming.
Stormwater, SWPPP & Permitting
NPDES coverage, SWPPP requirements, and what regulators actually check.
Do I need a SWPPP for my Florida construction project?
Generally yes if your project disturbs one acre or more of land, or disturbs less than an acre but is part of a larger common plan of development or sale that totals one acre or more. Those projects need coverage under the FDEP NPDES Construction Generic Permit, which requires a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan and the installation, inspection, maintenance, and documentation of the controls in it. Local jurisdictions and MS4 programs can impose requirements on smaller sites as well.
What is a Notice of Intent (NOI) and when is it filed?
A Notice of Intent is the filing that requests coverage under Florida's NPDES Construction Generic Permit for a specific site. It is submitted to FDEP before construction activity begins, and coverage takes effect on the timeline stated in the permit rather than instantly on submission. When the site reaches final stabilization and the permit obligations are complete, a Notice of Termination (NOT) ends coverage. Leaving a project without filing the NOT keeps the permit obligations running against the operator.
What is an MS4, and why does it matter to my project?
An MS4 is a Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System, the publicly owned network of drains, pipes, ditches, and outfalls that a city or county operates to move stormwater. MS4 operators carry their own NPDES permit obligations, which they pass down by inspecting and enforcing on construction sites that discharge into their system. Practically, that means a project in Central Florida is often answering to a county or city stormwater inspector in addition to FDEP, and the local requirements can be more specific than the state permit.
What does a stormwater inspector actually check?
Whether the controls shown in the SWPPP are physically present and installed correctly, whether they are functioning and maintained, whether sediment is leaving the site, whether stabilization is keeping pace with the disturbed area, and whether the inspection records are current and complete. The paperwork is checked as seriously as the field conditions, because the permit requires both. A site with sound controls and a gap in its inspection log still has a finding.
How quickly does a disturbed area have to be stabilized?
Under the construction permit, stabilization measures must be initiated on any area where earth-disturbing activities have permanently or temporarily ceased, within the timeframe the permit specifies. The practical effect is that leaving graded, bare soil sitting open indefinitely is a violation independent of whether anything has washed off the site yet. Confirm the current deadline in your permit, and plan temporary stabilization into the schedule rather than treating it as cleanup.
Does LES prepare SWPPPs and handle inspections?
Yes. LES provides SWPPP preparation and NOI filing support, ongoing compliance and post-rain inspections by an FSESCI Qualified Inspector, and the field installation and maintenance of the controls the plan calls for. What LES does not provide is engineered design or sealed drawings, which come from the project's licensed engineer.
Working With LES
How to start, what to send, and what to expect.
How do I request a proposal from LES?
Send the project address along with whatever you have: site plans, the SWPPP, an erosion control sheet, a tree survey, municipal comments, inspection findings, or just photos of the current conditions. You can submit it through the contact form at localenvironmentalservices.com/contact, upload plans directly, email Michael@LocalEnvironmentalServices.com, or call 407-502-6476. LES typically responds with scope and next steps within one business day.
What information should I send with my request?
The property address is the single most useful thing, because it establishes jurisdiction, drainage context, and site conditions. Beyond that, send whatever exists: civil or site plans, the erosion control sheet, the SWPPP, an approved tree preservation plan or tree survey, inspection findings or municipal comments you are responding to, and photos of the current conditions. Photos of the actual problem are often more useful than a plan set for scoping repair and maintenance work.
Does LES handle emergency and post-storm work?
Yes. Post-storm BMP restoration, emergency erosion repair, and response to trees damaged or failed by a storm are recurring work across Central Florida, and they are particularly common in coastal Volusia County. Response timing depends on storm severity and site access, which we assess as soon as conditions allow. If you have an active failure, call 407-502-6476 rather than using the contact form.
How does LES price work?
Scope drives it. Erosion and BMP work is generally priced off quantities and site conditions from the plan set or a site walk, maintenance and inspection work is typically structured on a recurring basis over the life of the project, and arborist work is priced by the scope of the assessment or the number of trees inventoried. LES prefers to look at plans or photos before quoting rather than giving a number that changes once someone sees the site.
Does LES provide documentation for the project file?
Yes, and it is a core part of the work rather than an add-on. That includes photo-documented installation records, inspection reports, maintenance and corrective action records, tree inventories and condition reports, and pre- and post-construction reporting. A control you cannot prove you installed correctly is a control you get to argue about later, which is why the record is produced as the work happens rather than reconstructed afterward.
More detailed answers
These field notes go deeper than the summaries above, each with its own set of questions and answers.
- A Tree Leader Failed Onto a Parked Car in Daytona Beach. Nobody Was In It. That Part Was Luck.
The canopy was green. The trunk looked solid from the parking lot. Then a leader the size of a small tree tore out of it, came down across the driver's door of a resident's car, and left a cavity you could put your arm into. Here is what that failure was telling us, and why nobody saw it coming from the ground.
- Florida's Tree Removal Law Is Not the Free Pass Everybody Thinks It Is
I get asked about this law almost every week, usually by somebody who has already been told they do not need a permit. Most of the time they are wrong, and the reason is one word in the statute that nobody reads carefully.
- The Tree You Killed During Construction Does Not Die Until Year Four
The tree makes it through construction, gets its certificate of occupancy photo, and dies three years later. Everybody blames drought. It was the grading, and the damage was done in an afternoon.
- Silt Fence in Florida: Why So Much of It Fails Inspection, and What the DEP Actually Requires
Half the silt fence I inspect would not survive a serious look. Here is what the DEP actually requires, why most of it fails, and what it costs a contractor when it does.
- Riprap Installation on a Central Florida Lakefront: How We Stopped a Shoreline From Washing Into the Lake
A lakefront bank was losing ground to every storm and boat wake and dumping soil straight into the water. Here is how we rebuilt it with filter fabric and graded granite riprap, and why it will hold.
Question not answered here?
Send the property address and whatever you have — plans, photos, inspection findings, or a tree survey. We'll tell you what we see.
Need erosion control, silt fence, BMP maintenance, or post-rain inspection support? Call 407-502-6476 or request a BMP proposal from Local Environmental Services.