Complete civil packages for utility solar in Barry County, Michigan: 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 Barry County, Michigan. We contract the complete civil package under one agreement, with Backwell superintendents and lead operators on site.
Barry County shares the 140 MW Spring Creek Agri-Energy Center with neighboring Calhoun County, on a footprint of roughly 1,600 acres targeted for 2026 operation. The agrivoltaic design puts more scrutiny on grading tolerances, vegetation establishment, and drainage restoration than a conventional array. Barry sits between the Grand Rapids and Battle Creek markets, so material supply and hauling are workable. A contractor already mobilized in Calhoun can cover this site without a second mobilization.
Publicly reported utility-scale solar in and around Barry 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.
Interlobate upland between the Michigan lobe and the Saginaw lobe, which produced a hummocky knob and kettle landscape of moraine, kames, and eskers holding hundreds of kettle lakes, including Gun Lake and Thornapple Lake, with the Thornapple River draining northwest to the Grand. Yankee Springs and the Barry State Game Area preserve much of the roughest topography in oak and hickory upland forest. Soils are gravelly and sandy: Boyer, Oshtemo, Spinks, and Coloma on the kames and outwash, Riddles and Hillsdale sandy loam on the loamy till, Brady and Gilford in the swales, and Houghton and Adrian muck in the kettle bottoms. Drainage is poorly integrated, with many closed depressions that have no surface outlet at all.
Expect genuine cut and fill rather than a balanced site, with short steep slopes that force switchback or contour access road alignments and real attention to road grade for delivery trucks and cranes. The upside is aggregate: local pits are everywhere in the kames and outwash and haul road stone is cheap and close. The muck kettles have to be undercut or bridged and the closed basins have no legal outlet, so stormwater must be infiltrated on site, which the sandy soils will accept if you protect the basin floor from compaction and sediment during construction.
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. Michigan does not issue a statewide general contractor or commercial building license. LARA licenses residential builders and maintenance and alteration contractors for residential work only, so commercial civil sitework, earthwork, grading, and access road construction do not require a state contractor license. Specialty trades that do require state licenses include electrical, mechanical, and plumbing, which matters for the electrical scope on a solar site. Local units of government and some counties require contractor registration or permits, and contractors performing state funded public work must register with the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity.
Construction stormwater. Construction stormwater in Michigan is administered by the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE), Water Resources Division, under the NPDES program paired with Part 91 Soil Erosion and Sedimentation Control of NREPA. Any earth change disturbing one acre or more with a point source discharge to waters of the state requires NPDES coverage. Sites disturbing one to five acres receive automatic Permit by Rule coverage once a Part 91 SESC permit is issued by the county or municipal enforcing agency. Sites disturbing five acres or more, which is every utility solar site, must obtain the Part 91 SESC permit and then submit a Notice of Coverage (NOC) application to EGLE Water Resources Division with the approved SESC plan, site location map, and fee. A certified storm water operator must inspect the site weekly and within 24 hours of a rain event that produces a discharge. 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 registered apprenticeship requirements apply to solar projects of 1 MW AC and larger that claim the full Inflation Reduction Act credit rate, so certified payroll is standard on Michigan utility solar. On top of that, Michigan reinstated a state prevailing wage act, 2023 PA 10, effective February 2024 for state funded construction. The larger factor for solar is Public Act 233 of 2023: an applicant for an MPSC siting certificate must pay workers on construction and construction maintenance of the energy facility no less than the prevailing wage and fringe benefit rates determined under 2023 PA 10 or Davis-Bacon, whichever is higher, and must use apprenticeship programs registered with the U.S. Department of Labor. Contractors bidding Michigan solar civil work should assume certified payroll, prevailing wage rates, and registered apprentice ratios. 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 Michigan 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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