Complete civil packages for utility solar in Cochise County, Arizona: clearing, mass grading, access roads, collection trenching, SWPPP, fencing, and substation civil.
Backwell is a civil site work general contractor serving utility solar EPCs building in Cochise County, Arizona. We contract the complete civil package under one agreement, with Backwell superintendents and lead operators on site.
Cochise County hosts the Apache Generating Station near Willcox, which gives cooperative scale solar a ready interconnection point. Arizona Electric Power Cooperative approved the Apache Solar II project at up to 294 MW of solar with a 940 MWh battery, developed through affiliates of Clenera and Enlight. Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative also has the completed McNeal Solar Farm in the county, 20 MW of solar with 80 MWh of storage built by Silicon Ranch. Cochise is a cooperative driven market rather than an APS or SRP market, so the buyers and the bid process are different.
Publicly reported utility-scale solar in and around Cochise County:
Project details come from public filings and reporting and are listed to show where the work is. Backwell is not affiliated with these projects or their developers.
Classic Basin and Range: the Sulphur Springs Valley and the San Pedro and San Simon valleys separated by the Chiricahua, Dragoon, Dos Cabezas, Mule and Huachuca Mountains, with long, well developed bajadas running off each range. Elevation on the valley floors is 3,500 to 4,500 feet, so this is high desert grassland rather than Sonoran creosote flat. Valley and fan soils include Tombstone gravelly loams on the upper fans, Hathaway soils over caliche, Bernardino and Forrest clay loams with strong argillic and calcic subsoils, Elfrida and McAllister loams on the deep valley fill, Sonoita sandy loams, and Grabe loams on the floodplains. The center of the Sulphur Springs Valley closes on the Willcox Playa, a flat, saline, alkaline lakebed of fine silt and clay with no outlet. Groundwater overdraft in the Willcox basin has produced documented subsidence and earth fissures.
Grassland clearing is easy but mesquite invasion on the fans is deep rooted and grubs hard, and the higher rainfall here, 12 to 16 inches, means the site actually revegetates, so seeding is a real erosion control tool rather than a formality. The Hathaway and Tombstone fan soils sit over caliche that will refuse piles and stop trenchers, and the Bernardino and Forrest clay loams have enough clay to be plastic and slick when wet, which shuts down haul roads after a monsoon cell. Anywhere near the playa margin expect saline, sodic, low strength fine soils that pump under traffic, corrode buried steel and concrete, and hold water for days, so avoid the lakebed entirely for structures and route access around it. Pull the Arizona Geological Survey fissure mapping for the Willcox basin before finalizing road and collection alignments. Monsoon season, roughly July through mid September, drives real sheet and gully flow off the bajadas, so build with diversion berms, armored crossings and staged stabilization rather than open grade over a whole site at once.
We price the package as one scope under one contract, so the EPC has a single point of responsibility for the civil critical path instead of managing separate clearing, earthwork, and utility subcontracts.
Backwell superintendents, project managers, and lead operators run every site. We mobilize company equipment for the core scope and scale each project with leased production fleets, qualified regional subcontractors, and agency-placed field staff, all under Backwell supervision and a single contract.
Contractor licensing. Yes. Arizona requires a contractor license issued by the Arizona Registrar of Contractors (ROC). For commercial civil sitework the relevant classification is the commercial A General Engineering license, which covers fixed works, streets and roads, power and utility plants and related infrastructure, and which also carries the scopes of the A-4 through A-19 subclassifications including A-5, excavating, grading and oil surfacing. A contractor may alternatively hold a specific A subclassification such as A-5 rather than the full A. Licensure requires documented trade experience, passing the Business Management exam and the applicable trade exam, and a license bond.
Construction stormwater. AZPDES Construction General Permit (CGP) for Stormwater, issued by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ). Coverage is required for construction disturbing one acre or more, or less than one acre if part of a larger common plan of development or sale, and it also covers temporary concrete, asphalt and material plants set up exclusively for the permitted project. The operator files a Notice of Intent with ADEQ certifying that a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan has been developed and will be followed. Backwell carries the SWPPP scope, installs and maintains the controls, keeps the inspection log, and closes the permit out with final stabilization.
Prevailing wage. Federal Davis-Bacon prevailing wage and apprenticeship requirements apply through the Inflation Reduction Act to projects of 1 MW and larger that claim the full investment or production tax credit, so certified payroll is standard on utility-scale solar in Arizona. On top of that, Arizona has no state prevailing wage law for state or locally funded public works, and Arizona statute preempts local governments from adopting their own prevailing wage ordinances. In practice the wage determination governing an Arizona solar site comes from the federal IRA requirement or from the owner or EPC contract, not from a state schedule. Davis-Bacon also applies directly on federally funded or federally assisted work. For projects claiming the full ITC or PTC, Backwell produces Davis-Bacon certified payroll, pays the applicable wage determination, and supports apprenticeship labor-hour compliance.
All Arizona solar civil work or the national utility solar civil page.
Send plans, a scope of work, and the schedule through the form below or call (315) 400-2654. We review the civil package, walk the site if it is at that stage, and return a scoped proposal with a schedule of values, stated fill allowances, and unit rates for overages. A one-page capability statement is available for prequalification files.
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