Complete civil packages for utility solar in Torrance County, New Mexico: 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 Torrance County, New Mexico. We contract the complete civil package under one agreement, with Backwell superintendents and lead operators on site.
Torrance County is the New Mexico anchor point of the SunZia transmission system, whose permitted route originates at a substation in the county and runs roughly 520 miles west to Pinal County, Arizona. That 500 kV capacity, now energized, is the reason central New Mexico is expected to attract additional generation siting through the late 2020s. Exus Renewables already operates solar generation in Torrance County. The heavy activity here to date has been wind rather than solar, so a civil contractor should treat Torrance as an early positioning market driven by transmission access, not by a confirmed solar construction backlog.
Torrance County is the Estancia Basin, a closed basin with no outlet, floored by the sediments of Pleistocene Lake Estancia. The lowest ground holds a chain of salt playas, the largest being Laguna del Perro, roughly 12 miles long, where groundwater discharges and evaporates. Deflation basins were cut into the lacustrine sediment and dunes were built downwind of them. The Manzano Mountains wall the west side and the Pedernal Hills sit east. The Manzano series has its type location in Torrance County: a fine loamy soil formed in alluvium from limestone, shale, and sandstone along drainageways, valley floors, stream terraces, and lower fan positions. The Moriarty series, a very slowly permeable fine textured soil formed in redbed shale derived sediment on broad channeled floodplains, maps across the northern valley, and Dean type limestone bajada soils with a calcic horizon occupy the higher fan and mesa ground toward the Manzanos.
Clearing is grass, saltbush, and scattered juniper, so grubbing is light except on the Manzano piedmont where pinyon and juniper thicken up. The two things that will bite you are the Moriarty type clays and the playa margins. Very slow permeability clay means water sits on the surface after storms, subgrade goes soft, and haul roads rut deep, so build a granular working platform and schedule earthwork around the monsoon. Salt and gypsum near the playas mean sulfate and chloride testing before any buried concrete or steel, and shallow alkaline groundwater in the low ground. On the limestone bajada expect a cemented calcic horizon and rock in cuts and trench, with the upside that crushed limestone base is available locally. Because the basin is closed, stormwater design is retention and infiltration rather than discharge, and any grading that redirects sheet flow will simply pond somewhere else on the property.
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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