Water Technical Access Portal (WaterTAP)

The California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB), in partnership with the California Department of Technology, is seeking qualified bidders to develop a cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) solution called the Water Technical Access Portal (WaterTAP). The procurement is structured as a three-phase competitive process, with Phase 1 proposals due January 29, 2026, Phase 2 demonstrations on March 11, 2026, and negotiations scheduled from April 23 to May 13, 2026, with a contract award anticipated by September 2, 2026. The WaterTAP solution will replace legacy systems and integrate disparate data sources into a single, cohesive enterprise-level platform supporting approximately 65,000 total active users, including water system administrators, external users, internal staff, and system administrators. Key objectives include streamlining information access, supporting data and document submissions, enabling workflow routing, and providing compliance decision support for drinking water reporting. The solution must integrate with existing foundational data systems using SWRCB's preferred platform ecosystem of Salesforce, Mulesoft, ESRI, Tableau, and Snowflake. Evaluation criteria will be comprehensive, with cost representing 30% of the total scoring (6,159 of 20,531 maximum points), and up to three highest-scoring bidders will advance to Phase 2 for live demonstrations and interviews.

The procurement includes several socioeconomic program preferences, such as Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise (DVBE) incentives for participation exceeding three percent, a Small Business Preference of five percent, and a non-small business subcontractor preference of five percent for minimum 25 percent small business participation. The base contract term is three years, with options for one additional one-year extension for implementation work at no additional cost and up to two additional one-year maintenance and operations extensions, potentially extending the total contract term to six years. Existing infrastructure to be integrated includes systems like SDWIS, WQIr/CLIP, eAR, and SAFER Clearinghouse, with the solution to be hosted in a State-hosted environment primarily utilizing Salesforce and Azure infrastructure. The contractor must provide a minimum of ten key staff roles with specific mandatory qualifications, including an Engagement Director, Project Manager, Senior Data Architect, and others. While specific award values are not explicitly stated, the procurement includes provisions for withholding 15 percent from each invoiced payment and potential liquidated damages up to 10% of the total contract award price for system delivery, with annual caps of $120,000 per individual Service Level Agreement (SLA) category.