Complete civil packages for utility solar near Fallon, NV: 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 Fallon in Churchill County, Nevada. One contract covers clearing through final stabilization, with Backwell field leadership on site.
US 50 and US 95 cross in town, giving four directions of legal heavy haul without a mountain pass, and the Union Pacific branch from Hazen ends here for rail delivered material. Nearest interstate is I 80 at Fernley, roughly 30 miles northwest on Alt US 95. Sand and gravel come out of pits on the Carson River fans and the Sand Springs area east of town, and Enel's Stillwater plant east of Fallon already pairs geothermal with solar.
Publicly reported utility-scale solar in and around Churchill 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.
Churchill County occupies the floor of the Lahontan Basin, the deepest part of pluvial Lake Lahontan, so most workable ground is lake plain, delta, and beach bar rather than fan piedmont. The Lahontan series, whose type location is in Lahontan Valley east of Carson Lake Pasture, is moderately well drained lacustrine silt and very fine sand on lake plains and deltas, while the Parran series, typed about 2.5 miles southeast of Hazen, is the strongly saline and sodic playa soil of the basin low. Isolde fine sand, also typed in Churchill County, forms the semi stabilized dune fields that drift across the basin, and Mazuma fine sandy loam covers fan skirts and basin floor remnants around the valley edges. Hydrology is internally drained: the Carson River dies in Carson Sink and Stillwater Marsh, the water table sits within a few feet of grade across much of the irrigated Fallon bottoms, and Lahontan Reservoir plus the Truckee Canal control nearly all surface flow.
Clearing is light, greasewood, rabbitbrush, and saltgrass instead of timber, but grubbing the playa margins exposes fine silt that pumps and ruts under haul traffic as soon as the shallow water table is disturbed. Mass grading in Lahontan and Parran ground yields low plasticity silt with poor wet bearing and high salt and sodium content, so plan on cement or lime treatment, imported granular section for access roads and pads, sulfate resistant concrete, and corrosion protection on buried steel, grounding, and pile. Trenching is easy digging in silt and dune sand but nothing stands on its own, so budget shoring or laid back slopes plus dewatering near Stillwater and the irrigated bottoms. Erosion control is wind first and water second, and because the basin has no outlet, whatever sediment and ponded runoff you create stays on site.
Full detail on the Churchill County market is on the Churchill County 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. Nevada requires a state contractor license issued by the Nevada State Contractors Board (NSCB) for commercial construction, and the Board sets a monetary limit on each license based on the applicant's financial statement. Commercial civil sitework falls under Classification A, General Engineering, which is broken into subclassifications: the ones that matter for solar civil are A-7 Excavating and Grading, A-12 Excavating, Grading, Trenching and Surfacing, A-16 Paving, A-15 Sewers, Drains and Pipes, and A-17 Lines to Transmit Electricity for gen tie and collection work. Licensure requires a written examination, a background investigation, and a financial responsibility review, and the license must carry a monetary limit high enough for the contract value being bid. Source: https://www.nvcontractorsboard.com/about-us/license-classifications/
Construction stormwater. Nevada's construction stormwater permit is the Stormwater Construction General Permit, permit number NVR100000, issued by the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection (NDEP), Bureau of Water Pollution Control, Stormwater Branch. Coverage is required for any project disturbing one acre or more, for smaller projects that are part of a larger common plan of development, and for sub acre projects the Stormwater Branch determines will impact receiving waters within a quarter mile. The operator prepares a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) first, then submits a Notice of Intent (NOI) to obtain coverage before ground disturbance begins. The 2015 version of NVR100000 has been administratively continued while a renewal is drafted. Source: https://ndep.nv.gov/water/water-pollution-control/permitting/stormwater-discharge-permits/construction-sites-greater-than-1-acre 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 rules apply through the Inflation Reduction Act to projects of 1 MW alternating current and above that claim the increased investment or production tax credit, and that covers essentially every utility-scale solar job in Nevada. On top of that, Nevada has its own wage floor for renewable energy projects that take the state partial tax abatement under NRS 701A.300 to 701A.390: NRS 701A.365 requires that the average hourly wage paid to employees working on construction of the facility, excluding management and administrative staff, be at least 175 percent of the average statewide hourly wage as set by the Employment Security Division of DETR each July 1, and that workers be offered a health insurance plan with a dependent coverage option. DETR publishes the applicable green energy wage figure annually. Separately, NRS Chapter 338 prevailing wage applies to public works contracts awarded by state and local public bodies, which is a different track from privately owned solar generation. Sources: https://law.justia.com/codes/nevada/chapter-701a/ and https://www.energy.nv.gov/siteassets/content/programs/Renewable_Energy_Tax_Abatements_Requirements__2.pdf and https://www.nevadaworkforce.com/_docs/Green-Wage/2024_Green_Energy_Tax_Abatement.pdf 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 Nevada 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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