Complete civil packages for utility solar near Madison, AR: clearing, mass grading, access roads, collection trenching, SWPPP, fencing, and substation civil.
Backwell contracts complete civil site work packages for utility solar EPCs building near Madison in St. Francis County, Arkansas. One contract covers clearing through final stabilization, with Backwell field leadership on site.
On US 70 at the St. Francis River crossing just east of Forrest City, which is the pinch point for any heavy haul moving east on the old highway. Interstate 40 is a few minutes north.
Publicly reported utility-scale solar in and around St. Francis 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.
Crowley's Ridge runs right through the middle of the county at Forrest City, giving St. Francis County something almost no other Delta county has: genuine relief, with the loess capped ridge standing a couple hundred feet above the flats on either side. Ridge soils are the loessial series Memphis, Loring and Calloway, sitting over the sand and gravel of the older upland deposits, and loess will stand in near vertical cuts when dry then gully out completely once water concentrates on it. West of the ridge is the L'Anguille River lowland and east is the St. Francis River basin, both flat alluvial plain with Sharkey and Alligator clays in the backswamps and Dundee and Amagon soils on the slightly higher ground. Drainage on the flats is ditch controlled and the water table is shallow.
On the ridge you are doing real cut and fill, side hill benching, and haul road switchbacks, which is unusual for east Arkansas and changes your equipment spread. Loess is the controlling risk: it compacts beautifully and holds slopes when dry, and it will cut a gully through a finished pad in one storm, so erosion control needs check dams, short slope lengths, diversion berms at the top of every cut, and cover established immediately rather than at substantial completion. The ridge gravel deposits are a genuine local aggregate source, which is rare in the Delta and worth pricing against hauled stone. Down on the flats the job reverts to standard Delta work: shallow grading, wet clay subgrade, dewatered trenches, and outfalls tied into drainage district ditches.
Full detail on the St. Francis County market is on the St. Francis County solar civil page.
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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