Complete civil packages for utility solar near Delhi, 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 Delhi in Richland Parish, Louisiana. One contract covers clearing through final stabilization, with Backwell field leadership on site.
Second I-20 interchange town in the parish, about 15 miles east of Rayville, with US 80 and LA 17 feeding the agricultural lowlands north and south. Good staging position for crews working the Boeuf River and Bayou Macon bottoms, and it is roughly 45 miles from Monroe and 55 miles from Vicksburg for equipment, fuel, and stone supply.
Richland straddles two very different landforms. The eastern and central part of the parish sits on Macon Ridge, a Pleistocene braided stream terrace built by the ancestral Arkansas River and capped with two to four feet of loess, standing roughly 20 to 30 feet above the surrounding flats. Ridge soils are Gigger and Providence silt loams, moderately well drained Fragiudults with a dense fragipan that perches a seasonal water table from about January through March, with Calhoun and Guyton silt loams in the level swales between. Off the ridge, in the Boeuf River and Bayou Macon lowlands, the mapping shifts to Sharkey and Perry clays, poorly drained smectitic clays that crack in summer and hold water the rest of the year. Surface fall across the whole parish is measured in inches per mile, and drainage runs through a maintained lateral ditch and pump network rather than natural grade.
On the ridge, clearing is mostly cropland and fencerow hardwood, and the loess silts strip and stockpile easily, but they pump under loaded traffic when the fragipan holds water, so haul roads want stone over geotextile from October through April. Off the ridge in Sharkey and Perry clay, plan on track equipment, near zero compaction windows in wet weather, and imported base for every access road because there is no usable on site granular material. Collection trenching in the clays needs box shoring and continuous dewatering since sidewalls slake once they wet, while ridge trenching hits the fragipan as a hard but rippable layer. Erosion control here is sediment retention, not slope protection: silt fence performs poorly in clay, so use rock check dams in field ditches, sized sediment traps at outfalls, and fast temporary cover on the erodible loess.
Full detail on the Richland Parish market is on the Richland 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.
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