Complete civil packages for utility solar in Bay 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 Bay County, Michigan. We contract the complete civil package under one agreement, with Backwell superintendents and lead operators on site.
Bay County hosts the Karn Solar Project, an 85 MW array on the former site of the Karn 1 and 2 coal fired units, with a 2026 commercial operation date. Building on a retired coal plant footprint means demolition interface, existing substation tie in, and remediation aware earthwork instead of clean greenfield grading. That profile fits a contractor that runs demolition and sitework together. Bay County also sits in the middle of the Saginaw Bay transmission area, where additional interconnection capacity is being sought.
Publicly reported utility-scale solar in and around Bay 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.
Saginaw Bay lake plain, one of the flattest landscapes in Michigan, with elevations only a few feet above the bay and low relict sand beach ridges crossing an otherwise uniform clay and clay loam plain. The Saginaw River, formed upstream at the Tittabawassee and Shiawassee confluence, runs through Bay City to the bay, joined by the Kawkawlin and Pinconning rivers. Soils are heavy and wet: Kawkawlin loam, named for the river in this county, along with Tappan, Parkhill, and Wisner in the wet flats, Sims clay loam in the lowest lacustrine ground, Londo and Nester on the slightly higher till, and Houghton muck in old lakebed depressions. Drainage is entirely engineered, through county legal drains and near universal field tile with pumped outlets near the bay, and the spring water table sits within a couple feet of grade.
This is the hardest civil ground on the list. Plastic clay loses strength as soon as it wets, so the grading window is dry summer or frozen ground, and access roads need undercut, geogrid, and a thick aggregate section or they will pump and rut under the first loaded truck. Trench walls in clay stand well but the excavation floods, so plan dewatering and a stone bedding section, and treat every cut tile line as a repair obligation with a location record. Sediment control needs real sediment basins with polymer or flocculant because clay fines will not settle in a silt fence, and with almost no natural fall the ditch grades and outlet elevations control the entire drainage design.
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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