Complete civil packages for utility solar in Sunflower County, Mississippi: 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 Sunflower County, Mississippi. We contract the complete civil package under one agreement, with Backwell superintendents and lead operators on site.
Sunflower County is the proving ground for utility-scale solar in the Mississippi Delta. Sunflower Solar Station near Ruleville is a 100 MW, roughly 1,000 acre facility with about 272,000 panels on 3,000 trackers, built by Recurrent Energy under a build transfer agreement and completed in May 2022, and it remains Entergy's flagship owned solar plant in the state. The county proved out the interconnection, land assembly, and Delta soil grading approach that later Entergy projects follow. Repeat activity in this corridor is likely as Entergy adds capacity for data center load.
Publicly reported utility-scale solar in and around Sunflower 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.
All Delta floor, drained by the Big Sunflower River, the Quiver River and Indian Bayou, with only a few tens of feet of fall from the north county line to the south. The alluvium sorts the same way as the rest of the Delta: Sharkey and Alligator clays plus the wetter Dowling in the backswamp flats, Dundee and Forestdale in intermediate positions, Bosket and Dubbs on the sandier old meander ridges, and Commerce and Robinsonville near the active channels. Sharkey, first established as a series in 1901, dominates the county and is one of the most extensive soils in the United States. Nearly all of the county is irrigated row crop laid over a dense grid of field ditches, tailwater ditches and buried irrigation pipe.
Standard Delta rules, and Entergy's 100 MW Sunflower Solar Station near Ruleville already proved them out on this exact ground. Clearing and grubbing is light. Mass grading is shallow, so the risk is not cut volume, it is destroying the drainage grid: survey the existing ditches and tailwater outlets before the dozers start, because a flat site that cannot shed water costs a whole construction season. Access roads want undercut, fabric and imported stone since nothing native holds up under loaded trucks in the wet months. Trench in the dry window, moisture condition the clay backfill, and expect the shrink-swell clay to open cracks along the trench line the following summer, which needs to be in the restoration budget. Erosion control is sediment settling in flat channels rather than slope wash.
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. Commercial civil sitework in Mississippi requires a Commercial Certificate of Responsibility from the Mississippi State Board of Contractors. Mississippi law makes it unlawful to contract or subcontract any portion of a public or private construction project equal to or exceeding $50,000 unless the contractor or subcontractor was duly licensed by the Board as of the date bids were submitted, so the license must be in hand before bid day, not at award. Applicants file a CPA reviewed or audited financial statement and hold the classification that matches the scope, and out of state firms must also be registered with the Mississippi Secretary of State.
Construction stormwater. Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), Environmental Permits Division, issues the Large Construction Storm Water General Permit, permit number MSR10, covering construction that disturbs five or more acres. Coverage is obtained by filing a Large Construction Notice of Intent (LCNOI) at least 30 days before construction starts, with a Certificate of Good Standing from the Mississippi Secretary of State dated within the prior 12 months. The property owner and the prime contractor carry joint and several responsibility for compliance, which puts the SWPPP, inspections, and BMP maintenance squarely on the civil contractor on a solar site. 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 through the Inflation Reduction Act to qualifying projects of 1 MW alternating current and larger when the owner claims the increased credit rate, so certified payroll and apprentice ratio tracking are standard on Mississippi utility-scale solar even on privately owned sites. Mississippi does not layer a state prevailing wage law on top of that for construction contracts, and it is a right to work state, so the wage determination that governs is the federal one written into the EPC contract. Contractors should confirm the specific wage determination and apprenticeship language in each solicitation rather than assuming none applies. 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 Mississippi 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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