Complete civil packages for utility solar near Bastrop, LA: 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 Bastrop in Morehouse Parish, Louisiana. One contract covers clearing through final stabilization, with Backwell field leadership on site.
Parish seat and the industrial center of the parish, with US 165 four lane running south to Monroe and I-20 in roughly 30 miles, US 425 north into Arkansas, and rail service. The former paper mill complex left behind heavy industrial infrastructure, laydown ground, and a skilled industrial labor pool. Aggregate is trucked from Monroe or brought up from the Ouachita River terminals.
Publicly reported utility-scale solar in and around Morehouse Parish:
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.
Morehouse splits between terrace upland and heavy alluvial bottom. The northwestern part of the parish rises into Pleistocene terrace and pine upland with loess influenced silt loams of the Gigger and Providence type over a fragipan. East and south of that, along the Boeuf River, Bayou Bartholomew, and Bayou Bonne Idee, the parish is alluvial plain built by the ancestral Arkansas River system. Perry clay has its type location in Morehouse Parish: a poorly drained smectitic Vertisol with 60 to 85 percent clay in the control section, slickensides, very slow permeability, and short duration flooding most years where it is not leveed. Sharkey clay occupies similar backswamp positions, with better drained natural levee silt loams on the low ridges. Relief across the bottoms is a few feet, and drainage is ditch and pump managed.
In Perry and Sharkey clay the subgrade is the whole job. These soils shrink and crack in summer, swell and turn to grease when wet, have essentially no permeability, and give a very narrow compaction window, so schedule mass grading for late summer and fall. Track equipment only, and haul roads need 18 to 24 inches of imported stone over geotextile because there is no on site granular material anywhere near. Trench walls in high plasticity clay stand up briefly then slake, so shoring plus dewatering, and expect trench spoil that cannot be reused as bedding. Piles gain good friction capacity but shrink swell uplift on the upper shaft has to be accounted for. Erosion control is sediment capture: rock check dams in field ditches, sediment traps ahead of every outfall, and stabilized construction entrances that actually get maintained, because clay tracked onto parish roads becomes an enforcement problem fast. On the northwestern terrace ground the picture flips to erodible silts over a fragipan.
Full detail on the Morehouse Parish market is on the Morehouse Parish 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. Louisiana requires a state commercial contractor license issued by the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors (LSLBC) for commercial projects valued at $50,000 or more including labor and materials, per the LSLBC types of licenses page. LSLBC issues licenses by classification, and solar civil sitework is normally performed under the heavy construction and highway, street and bridge construction classifications, with municipal and public works construction used for publicly bid utility work. The exact classification for a given scope should be confirmed with LSLBC before bidding, because Louisiana enforces classification scope, not just the license itself. Out of state contractors qualify through the same LSLBC process and must be registered with the Louisiana Secretary of State.
Construction stormwater. Louisiana Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (LPDES) storm water general permit for construction activity, administered by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ). Utility solar sites fall under the large construction general permit, LPDES Permit No. LAR100000, which covers construction disturbing five acres or more; the small construction general permit LAR200000 covers one acre up to five acres. Coverage is obtained by filing a Notice of Intent (form CSW-G) with LDEQ before construction begins, and a Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan must be prepared and kept current. Coverage under LAR100000 is not transferable between operators. Backwell carries the SWPPP scope, installs and maintains the controls, keeps the inspection log, and closes the permit out with final stabilization.
Prevailing wage. The governing wage requirement on Louisiana utility solar is federal, not state. Projects above 1 MW that claim the increased Inflation Reduction Act investment or production tax credit must pay Davis-Bacon prevailing wages to all laborers and mechanics of the taxpayer, contractors and subcontractors for construction, alteration or repair, and must meet the registered apprenticeship labor hour requirement. Louisiana has no state prevailing wage statute layered on top of that for private construction, so there is no state schedule to track the way there is in New York or Illinois. Certified payroll on these jobs is therefore driven by the IRA credit requirements and by the EPC's contract terms, and any federally funded or federally assisted work carries Davis-Bacon on its own footing. 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 Louisiana 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.
Plans, scope, and schedule reviewed and answered promptly.
Reply in hours, not days.