Silver Bridge and Forsite Take on Gavin Power Plant’s Largest Environmental Construction Project

Gallipolis, Ohio

On the heels of its merger with Forsite Environmental Solutions, Silver Bridge Excavating, now Powered by Forsite, was awarded a major heavy civil and environmental construction contract at the Gavin Power Plant, one of the largest coal-fired power plants in the country. The project, known as the Gavin Removal and Disposal of FGD (Flue Gas Desulfurization) Waste, marks Forsite Environmental Solutions’ first fully self-performed construction effort at this scale, carried out under a name the region already trusts in Silver Bridge Excavating.

After a period where closure of the Gavin plant looked likely, rising power demand across the region shifted the plant’s outlook, and it is now expected to run for years to come. Beyond the jobs it creates, the plant is also a major contributor to the local tax base supporting county services across Gallia and Meigs Counties.

Gavin is also one of the most closely watched coal-fired plants in the country. Kevin Harshberger, President of Forsite Environmental Solutions and COO, has noted that regulatory decisions made at Gavin Power Plant are likely to influence how similar plants are handled nationally, with pending U.S. EPA matters at the site still working through legal channels.

Coal-fired power plants like Gavin produce ash as a byproduct of generating electricity, and that ash has to be excavated and hauled away continuously, every day, for as long as the plant operates. At Gavin, that adds up to roughly  2 million tons of material moved every year, in a continuous operation.

Taking on this work meant assembling an entirely new equipment fleet for this specific scope, along with a project-specific workforce. A full fleet of dump trucks, loaders, and support equipment, had to be sourced and assembled from scratch. At the same time, the team needed to secure 25 to 30 skilled workers: equipment operators, drivers, and laborers experienced enough to work safely on an active industrial site.

Normally, a transition like this comes with roughly three months to get equipment and staffing in place before work begins. Silver Bridge and Forsite had about five weeks, in a regional labor market already stretched thin by competing construction projects nearby.

Key challenges included:

• Building a self-performing construction operation where Forsite had previously always subcontracted this type of work
• Sourcing an entire equipment fleet and hiring a full workforce in roughly a third of the usual planning window
• Executing a seamless handoff from the outgoing contractor, with the new team fully operational from day one and zero disruption to plant operations
• Competing for, and winning, work at a site under close regulatory attention, where performance and integrity are constantly being evaluated
• Securing  and retaining skilled labor in a region where demand from data center, nuclear, and steel projects is drawing from the same pool of workers

Kevin Harshberger and Brett Boothe, Silver Bridge co-owner and the Gallia County Engineer, brought years of firsthand experience at the Gavin Power Plant and in the Ohio Valley electric generating industry into this project. Boothe had already spent years working directly with plant leadership as Silver Bridge’s lead point of contact on site.

That familiarity shaped how the changeover was planned. 

Contractor transitions at an active power plant carry real risk: if the incoming team isn’t ready on day one, ash keeps accumulating with nowhere to go, and plant operations can be affected. To avoid that, Silver Bridge and Forsite staged their equipment on site ahead of time, positioned and ready to go before the previous contractor’s last shift ended. When that contractor’s final day wrapped up on a Friday, ash from the weekend was left on a concrete collection pad. On Monday, the new team moved directly into position, loading and hauling that material without delay, while the outgoing contractor’s equipment was phased off site over the following one to two weeks. The result was a changeover with no gap in operations and no disruption to the plant.

The project also had to solve for a labor market already stretched thin by data center, nuclear, and steel construction nearby. Rather than compete for labor purely on wages, Silver Bridge and Forsite are retaining most of the existing workforce and training them in accordance with Silver Bridge’s expectations and standards, an approach that draws on the experience and trust Silver Bridge Excavation has built with the surrounding counties.

For Harshberger and Boothe, the Gavin Power Plant project is the first proof point for the kind of work Forsite and Silver Bridge intend to keep doing together, at this scale. Neither views it as an isolated win. The plant represents just one of several scopes of work at the site that the combined team believes it’s positioned to take on over time.

“I want a safe, successful project.  I want the plant to know, they can always depend on us to provide a quality project for them.  No project is too big or too complex, as we strive in providing solutions”
— Brett Boothe, Silver Bridge co-owner

That commitment runs both directions. 

Local leadership means local accountability, and both companies are treating this project as a marker for how they intend to operate going forward. As Boothe added, “We have a vested interest in a successful Gavin Power Plant project, because we live here too.”

• Awarded a major heavy civil and environmental construction contract at one of the country’s largest coal-fired power plants
• Built Forsite’s first fully self-performing construction operation from the ground up in weeks, rather than months
• Executed a seamless transition from the outgoing contractor with no disruption to plant operations
• Maintained the Silver Bridge Excavation name and local leadership throughout, reinforcing the continuity at the center of the merger
• Positioned the combined organization to pursue additional scopes of work at Gavin Power Plant over time

The Gavin Power Plant project stands as the first of what Harshberger and Boothe expect to be many successful projects delivered under the new Silver Bridge Excavating, Powered by Forsite. The merger was built on the premise that a regional operator with deep local relationships and a national environmental firm with technical depth and financial backing could accomplish more together than either could on its own. Gavin is the first demonstration of that model in practice: national capability, delivered through local hands, under a name the region has trusted for years.

Demand for CCR construction, landfill closure, and power plant environmental work continues to grow across the Ohio Valley and beyond, even as competition for skilled labor tightens alongside it. The combined organization is positioned to meet that demand directly, backed by the same local leadership that built Silver Bridge’s reputation in the first place.

For Harshberger and Boothe, the ambition extends beyond winning additional contracts. Their goal is to become the contractor the Gavin Power Plant, and sites like it, rely on for projects like this going forward.