Complete civil packages for utility solar in St. Lawrence County, New York: 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 St. Lawrence County, New York. We contract the complete civil package under one agreement, with Backwell superintendents and lead operators on site.
St. Lawrence County carries two of the largest permitted solar facilities in the North Country. Rich Road Solar in the town of Canton is permitted at 240 MW with 20 MW of storage, and Two Rivers Solar spans Massena and Brasher at 200 MW. The county is large, rural, and agricultural, so access roads, culverts, and stormwater controls over long linear runs drive the civil scope. Distance from downstate contractors is real, which favors upstate crews that can house and supply a project locally.
Publicly reported utility-scale solar in and around St. Lawrence 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.
The largest county in New York, split between the St. Lawrence lowland and the Adirondack foothills. The lowland along the river is floored by Champlain Sea marine clay and sand over Potsdam sandstone and Grenville marble and gneiss, mapped as Kingsbury and Covington heavy clays, Madrid, Malone, Nicholville and Massena loams, and Adams and Colton loamy sands on the outwash plains. South and east the ground rises into stony till over gneiss with extensive peat and muck in the flat basins. The Oswegatchie, Grasse, Raquette and St. Regis rivers all run north northwest in shallow meandering channels cut into clay, with unstable banks and broad seasonal floodplain.
The marine clay is the controlling condition. It is sensitive and high plasticity, loses strength when remolded, and turns to soup under repeated haul traffic, so access roads want geotextile separation and a thick stone section from day one rather than a repair later. Trench sidewalls in that clay will not stand, and slopes above incised streams slump, so keep cuts back from the banks. The sand plains are the opposite: easy excavation, no cohesion, caving trench walls, and heavy dust and wind erosion on stripped ground. Erosion control on flat clay ground depends on long traps and stabilized construction entrances, because the fines will track and stay suspended. Marble, sandstone and dolostone quarries near Gouverneur and Norwood keep aggregate cost reasonable despite the distance from any interstate.
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. New York does not issue a statewide general contractor license for commercial construction. Licensing is handled locally, so individual cities, towns, and counties may require contractor registration or a local license, and a few trades are licensed at the state level, including asbestos handling and crane operation. Separately, contractors and subcontractors performing public work, and work covered by the renewable energy prevailing wage statute, must be registered with the New York State Department of Labor under its statewide contractor registry, which took effect December 30, 2024. Owners and EPCs on solar projects will typically ask for that DOL registration number along with insurance and, where required, bonding.
Construction stormwater. SPDES General Permit for Stormwater Discharges from Construction Activity, permit number GP-0-25-001, issued by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. It took effect January 29, 2025, replacing GP-0-20-001, and runs through January 28, 2030. Coverage is triggered at one acre of soil disturbance, or less if part of a larger common plan, and requires a Notice of Intent plus a SWPPP prepared and implemented under the DEC design manual. Coverage under the prior permit did not carry over automatically, so active sites had to refile. 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 of 1 MW AC and larger that claim the full investment or production tax credit, so nearly every utility-scale solar job in New York is certified payroll work. On top of that, New York State has its own requirement: Labor Law Article 8 Section 224-d extends state prevailing wage, or a project labor agreement in lieu of it, to covered renewable energy systems, which New York State Department of Labor enforcement guidance applies to solar projects of 1 MW AC and larger that involve procurement of renewable energy credits by a public entity or a third party acting on its behalf. Because most large New York solar projects sell renewable energy credits to NYSERDA, 224-d is the practical baseline, and state certified payroll plus NYSDOL contractor registration come with it. A separate threshold of greater than five megawatts AC applies to other covered renewable energy systems, so the applicable trigger should be confirmed project by project. 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 York 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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