About

Thirty years of moving earth, now in La Pine

SurfaceTek, Inc. is a site work, septic, and excavation company based in La Pine, Oregon.

SurfaceTek is a new company. The experience behind it isn't.

Before starting SurfaceTek, Toby Witt spent three decades in mining and mine reclamation — work where earthmoving is the entire project rather than the part that happens before the real work starts. Pit expansions, reclamation of some of the largest sites in the country, and heavy civil work across the western states.

That background is the reason a driveway or a septic repair here gets treated as an engineering problem rather than a dirt-moving one. Grade, drainage, and compaction behave the same way on a quarter-acre lot as they do on a mine bench. The consequences are just smaller.

Toby Witt operating a Kubota excavator on a residential site in central Oregon.

Toby Witt on a residential dig in central Oregon.

Project history

Where the thirty years were spent

The photographs below are from projects Toby worked on as an operator before founding SurfaceTek. They are not SurfaceTek jobs — they are the thirty years behind it.

Volvo excavator loading an articulated haul truck on a mass excavation. — **Mass excavation**Excavator loading an articulated truck on a reservoir project. Crane rigging behind gives the scale.

Mining & reclamation

Morenci Copper Mine operations, Arizona. Colowyo Coal Mine expansion, Colorado. Gold mine reclamation, Salt Lake City. Castle Mountain gold mine reopening for Equinox, California.

Climax Mine, Leadville CO

Waste rock pit expansion, plus the main pit expansion that began at 13,200 feet of elevation — where weather, altitude, and a short working season set the schedule.

Questa Molybdenum Mine, NM

Reclamation of the Chevron-owned moly mine at Questa — described as the largest project of its kind, and used as a test model for reclamation work elsewhere in the world.

Heavy civil

Water reservoir construction in Wyoming, Colorado, Texas, and Alabama. Wind farms across the Midwest. Terminal expansion at Charlotte Douglas airport. Industrial construction in South Carolina. Highway widening in West Texas.

Excavator, articulated truck and dozer on a central Oregon site at dusk. — **Central Oregon — before SurfaceTek**Not all of the earlier work was out of state. Subdivision and road construction around Bend, running equipment on the same ground SurfaceTek works today.

Motor grader shaping a subdivision road in central Oregon. — **Road grade**Motor grader shaping subgrade on a new subdivision road, with utilities set and lots staked either side.

Dozer and loader working roads and lots on a central Oregon subdivision. — **Subdivision build**Roads cut and rocked, lots roughed in. Rock on the right is what central Oregon ground gives you.

Finished sidewalk and tracked slope on a central Oregon road project. — **Finished slope**Sidewalk in, embankment tracked in for erosion control ahead of seeding.

Cat dozer working the crest of a steep fill slope. — **Working the slope**Dozer on the crest of a fill. Slope work is where operating stops being about the blade and starts being about the ground under the tracks.

Excavator working alongside a new sidewalk and manhole on a central Oregon road. — **Utilities and hardscape**Excavator working alongside finished curb and walk, manhole set to grade. Working next to live traffic and new concrete.

Cat excavator on a cut slope above a new sidewalk in central Oregon. — **Cut above the walk**Excavator working the cut above a finished sidewalk, road open below.

Cat D5K LGP dozer at an industrial plant construction site. — **Industrial site**D5K LGP on an industrial plant build. Low ground pressure for working soft ground without churning it.

Cat 259D compact track loader grading beside an industrial building. — **Fine grading**Compact track loader working tight to the building line where the big iron cannot reach.

Reservoir intake structure under construction inside an excavated cut. — **Reservoir structure**Intake structure going in inside a cut — concrete pump, crawler crane, formwork, and a compactor working the base.

Cat dozer working an embankment with finished spillway steps behind. — **Embankment**Dozer on the fill, with the finished spillway steps and water surface behind.

Excavators placing armor stone over bedding along a reservoir slope. — **Riprap and bedding**Armor stone placed over bedding and geotextile — the layer that keeps the bank from going anywhere.

Concrete boom pump reaching over formed walls with a crawler crane standing by. — **Concrete placement**Boom pump over formed walls, rebar set and tied ahead of the pour.

Dozer shaping fill at a reservoir water line with turbidity curtain deployed. — **Shoreline work**Shaping fill at the water line, turbidity curtain deployed to keep sediment out of the reservoir.

Cat D6T dozer with a loaded blade of red clay on an embankment. — **Cat D6T**Blade loaded on the embankment. Clay this heavy holds compaction well and punishes anything that has to move it.

Excavators working alongside an airport terminal building during expansion work. — **Airport terminal expansion**Excavation alongside a live terminal. Working next to an operating facility means the schedule is set by everyone else's.

Excavator and telehandler working with crew and safety fencing on an airport expansion site. — **Terminal site work**Excavator, telehandler, and crew inside the fenced work zone. Every trade sequenced around the ones that cannot stop.

Articulated haul truck dumping fill at the water line on a reservoir project. — **Placing fill**Articulated truck dumping at the water line for the dozer to spread and the roller to compact.

How we work

You talk to the person who walked the site.

Toby Witt handles estimating and project management directly. When you call, you're talking to the person who wrote the number — not a coordinator relaying messages to someone in a truck.

We give realistic schedules instead of optimistic ones. We write down what's excluded. And when something on site changes the cost, you hear about it before it changes the cost.

On septic work specifically: we find out what's actually wrong before quoting a replacement. Sometimes that means we do a smaller job than the one you called about.

Credentials

Licensed, bonded, insured

Oregon CCB #260092

Licensed with the Oregon Construction Contractors Board.

DEQ SDS #39968

Oregon Sewage Disposal Service License — on-site septic installation, repair, and maintenance.

Bonded & insured

Certificates available on request.

[OPTIONAL — equipment list goes here. Machine classes and sizes. GCs and owner-builders read this closely.]

Tell us about the site.

Estimates are free, and we'd rather look at it in person than guess.

Request an estimate (702) 861-5151