Complete civil packages for utility solar near Corsicana, TX: 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 Corsicana in Navarro County, Texas. One contract covers clearing through final stabilization, with Backwell field leadership on site.
County seat directly on Interstate 45 at State Highway 31, which is the main heavy haul artery between Dallas and Houston. Union Pacific serves the town and there is industrial trackage from the old oil and manufacturing district. Base rock and limestone come in from Central Texas quarries to the west.
Publicly reported utility-scale solar in and around Navarro 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.
Navarro County sits on the eastern edge of the Blackland Prairie, over Upper Cretaceous Taylor Marl and Navarro Group clays and marls, with gently rolling ground from roughly 300 to 600 feet. The dominant soils are deep calcareous Vertisols: Houston Black clay and Heiden clay on the uplands, Ferris clay on the steeper eroded side slopes, and Wilson and Crockett clay loams where the county grades east into the claypan Post Oak country. Trinity and Kaufman clays fill the bottoms. Drainage runs southeast through Chambers Creek and Richland Creek into Richland Chambers Reservoir, with the Trinity River floodplain forming the east boundary.
Clearing is light, mostly mesquite, elm and post oak in fencerows and creek draws, but the grading is the hard part: plasticity indexes commonly run over 40, gilgai microrelief hides two feet of elevation change, and the material swells and shrinks badly through the season. Plan on moisture conditioning and lime or cement treatment for pads and access roads, geogrid under flexbase, and imported base rock since there is no usable in-county aggregate. Trench walls in the fat clay stand until they slake, then heave and slough, so shoring and dewatering assumptions should not be borrowed from a sandier job. Erosion control is more about slow settling silt than about steep slopes: native grass establishes well, but clay fines blind silt fence and require sediment basins with adequate detention.
Full detail on the Navarro County market is on the Navarro 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. Texas does not issue a statewide general contractor or general engineering contractor license, so commercial civil sitework requires no state contractor license. Licensing in Texas is trade specific: electrical work is licensed by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, plumbing by the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners, and sealed design work requires a Texas Professional Engineer registered with the Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors. Cities and counties can require their own contractor registration, bonds and permits, so registration is handled jurisdiction by jurisdiction. Out of state contractors register with the Texas Secretary of State to transact business and should confirm Texas Comptroller franchise tax standing.
Construction stormwater. Construction stormwater in Texas is permitted under the TPDES Construction General Permit, number TXR150000, issued by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). Utility-scale solar sites disturbing five acres or more are large construction activity and require a Notice of Intent, a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan, a posted site notice and a Notice of Termination at completion. Sites between one and five acres are small construction activity with a site notice and SWPPP. TCEQ is the delegated permitting authority in Texas, not EPA Region 6. 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 solar facilities of 1 MW AC and larger that claim the full investment or production tax credit, which covers essentially every project on this list. That means Davis-Bacon rates for the county, weekly certified payroll, and qualified apprentice labor hour percentages flowed down to subcontractors. Texas has no state prevailing wage law that reaches privately owned solar projects. Texas Government Code Chapter 2258 requires prevailing wage only on public works contracts let by the state or a political subdivision, with rates set by the awarding public body, so it does not apply to private utility-scale solar. In practice the IRA requirements are the operative wage and recordkeeping driver on Texas solar. 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 Texas 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.
Plans, scope, and schedule reviewed and answered promptly.
Reply in hours, not days.