Complete civil packages for utility solar in Grant County, Arkansas: 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 Grant County, Arkansas. We contract the complete civil package under one agreement, with Backwell superintendents and lead operators on site.
Grant County is the exception to the Delta pattern: the Redfield Solar Project sits on over 1,000 acres of woodland and timberland rather than row crop, which means clearing and stump removal on top of normal grading. Treaty Oak Clean Energy broke ground in March 2025 on the 100 MW project, with commercial operation expected in the first half of 2026 under a 15 year offtake with a technology company. The University of Arkansas footprint study specifically flagged Grant as the timberland site among the projects scheduled through 2026. It is a useful reference county for contractors who bring clearing and grubbing capacity as well as earthwork.
Publicly reported utility-scale solar in and around Grant 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.
Grant County is West Gulf Coastal Plain upland, rolling to hilly and heavily timbered, running roughly 200 to 450 feet with continuous small grade changes rather than the flat ground of the Delta. Soils formed in old marine and coastal plain sediments and include Sacul, with a sandy or loamy surface over a clayey subsoil, and Savannah fine sandy loam, which carries a fragipan that perches water above it. The Saline River and its tributaries including Hurricane Creek and Cypress Creek drain the county, cutting fairly incised valleys through the uplands. Sand and gravel deposits are worked commercially in the area, which matters for a county with no crushed stone of its own.
Unlike the Delta, clearing and grubbing here is a major line item: this is standing timber, so merchantable wood, stumping, grinding and disposal all get priced, and the schedule has to account for it before grading starts. Sacul type ground gullies hard once the sandy surface is stripped off the clayey subsoil, and the fragipan in Savannah soils perches water and turns benches soft even on slopes, so slope drains, diversion berms and rapid cover matter more here than anywhere else on this list. Mass grading is real cut and fill on rolling terrain with row terracing and benching, and access roads want geotextile with local sand and gravel over it. Trenching is generally easier than in the Delta because the ground drains, but cave in risk in the sandy horizons still calls for shoring.
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. Arkansas licenses commercial construction through the Arkansas Contractors Licensing Board, which sits under the Arkansas Department of Labor and Licensing. A Commercial Contractor license is required to bid or perform commercial work at or above the statutory threshold, generally understood to be 50,000 dollars, with separate classifications that cover heavy construction and highway, street and bridge work, which are the classifications that typically apply to solar civil sitework. Applicants must show construction experience, business capability, and financial statements. Verify the exact classification and threshold with the board at labor.arkansas.gov before bidding.
Construction stormwater. Construction General Permit ARR150000, the NPDES construction stormwater general permit issued by the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment, Division of Environmental Quality, formerly ADEQ. Coverage is required for any land disturbance of one acre or more, and a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan must be developed, implemented, and maintained for the life of construction. A Notice of Intent is filed with DEQ, and large sites of five acres or more require full NOI review rather than automatic coverage. 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 wages apply to utility-scale solar at 1 MW and above through the Inflation Reduction Act wage and apprenticeship requirements, which owners pass down to civil subcontractors through certified payroll obligations. Arkansas has NO state prevailing wage law: Act 1068 of 2017 repealed Ark. Code 22-9-301 through 22-9-315, so state and local public works in Arkansas carry no separate state wage determination. Federally funded work in Arkansas still triggers Davis-Bacon. In practice this means a solar civil contractor in Arkansas needs certified payroll capability for the IRA requirement, not for a state program. 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 Arkansas 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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