Complete civil packages for utility solar near Albuquerque, NM: 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 Albuquerque in Bernalillo County, New Mexico. One contract covers clearing through final stabilization, with Backwell field leadership on site.
The I-25 and I-40 crossing and the BNSF mainline and yard, which makes it the supply base for the entire state: crane services, rental fleets, geotech and materials labs, ready mix, and steel are all here. Sand and gravel pits operate inside the metro area.
Publicly reported utility-scale solar in and around Bernalillo 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.
Bernalillo County is a cross section of the Rio Grande rift. The valley floor carries deep, stratified Rio Grande alluvium in the Gila, Vinton, and Brazito soils, stone free, with a shallow water table and the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District ditch and drain network laced through it. West of the river the ground climbs the Llano de Albuquerque, a caliche capped basin surface with basalt flows and the Albuquerque volcanoes along the escarpment, mapped in Bluepoint, Madurez, Wink, and Kokan type soils. East of the city the piedmont builds off the Sandia and Manzanita mountains, where the Tijeras series has its type location: gravelly sandy loam and sandy clay loam over a very gravelly to very gravelly loamy sand substratum with 35 to 70 percent granite pebbles, on fan remnants between about 4,500 and 6,500 feet. Drainage is arroyo dominated, engineered into AMAFCA channels and dams inside the metro and unregulated outside it.
In the valley the constraints are shallow groundwater, soft compressible alluvium, and utility congestion. Dewatering, trench shoring, and MRGCD crossing permits belong in the bid, and lightweight surcharge or overexcavation is common for structures. On the west mesa, the caliche capped surface means shallow rock in cuts and a heavy hammer allowance, though the same caliche crushes into good base. Granitic soils on the east piedmont are free draining and easy to trench but abrasive on cutting edges, and the coarse gravel fraction makes bedding and compaction around conduit fussy. Clearing is minimal grass and shrub on the mesas and heavy cottonwood bosque in the valley, where tree removal carries permitting weight. Erosion control is regulated tightly in the urban area, so build to AMAFCA style conveyance standards and expect inspection, and outside the metro plan for concentrated arroyo flow crossing your access roads.
Full detail on the Bernalillo County market is on the Bernalillo 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. New Mexico requires a contractor license issued by the Regulation and Licensing Department, Construction Industries Division (CID), for work meeting the statutory definition of a contractor. Commercial civil sitework is generally carried out under the GB-98 general building classification for commercial and residential building work, or under the GA series for heavy and highway type work, where GA-98 covers asphalt, bitumen and concrete construction and carries the authority of the GA-1 through GA-5 classifications. A qualifying party must sit for the applicable trade and business and law exams, and a contractor bond, currently 10,000 dollars, is required before CID will issue the license. An out of state contractor should confirm the exact classification match for its scope, earthwork, grading, trenching, roads and foundations, directly with CID before bidding, since the classification map is scope specific.
Construction stormwater. New Mexico is not an authorized NPDES state. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 6 in Dallas, is the NPDES permitting authority for all facilities in New Mexico, so construction sites disturbing one acre or more are covered under the federal EPA Construction General Permit (CGP), with a SWPPP prepared and a Notice of Intent filed through EPA's electronic NOI (eNOI) system. The New Mexico Environment Department Surface Water Quality Bureau, Point Source Regulation Section, performs compliance inspections on behalf of EPA and handles Clean Water Act Section 401 certification, and reports go back to EPA Region 6. New Mexico legislation has given NMED statutory authority to move toward a state administered NPDES equivalent program, so contractors should confirm at bid time whether the federal CGP or a newly effective state permit governs the specific 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 apprenticeship requirements apply through the Inflation Reduction Act to projects above 1 MW that claim the increased ITC or PTC rate, which covers essentially every utility-scale solar project in this list, so certified payroll and registered apprentice ratios should be assumed on the civil scope. On top of that, New Mexico has its own state prevailing wage law, the Public Works Minimum Wage Act, administered by the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions, Labor Relations Division, which sets wage decisions for public works contracts above the statutory threshold. Privately owned utility-scale solar is generally not a public work under that Act, but it can be pulled in where a public entity, state or local funding, or a public land or municipal utility element is part of the deal, for example projects contracted to a county or municipal offtaker. Confirm with the owner at bid time which wage determination governs, and expect certified payroll reporting either way. 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 New Mexico 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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