Water and wastewater pursuits are won on demonstrated, relevant experience - similar treatment processes, comparable system size, construction administration, and often familiarity with the funding stack (state revolving funds, USDA Rural Development, CDBG, and related programs). This guide is about building an SOQ that makes those matches obvious. For the product angle, see water & wastewater solutions.
What utility owners typically score
- Key staff with the right licenses and plant or collection-system experience
- Past projects of similar type and scale (not just larger plants)
- Capacity to meet design and construction schedules
- Past performance with the owner or similar utilities
- Experience with the funding agency's process when the project is SRF-, USDA-, or grant-funded
Relevance beats trophy projects
A 0.5 MGD plant upgrade for a small system often scores better on a small-system RFQ than a regional mega-plant your firm designed as a sub. State the similarity explicitly: process type, capacity band, regulatory context, and your role (prime vs. discipline lead).
Staff the page the way you will staff the job
Put forward the PE who will lead design, the people who know operations and constructability, and - when the RFQ asks - construction administration or resident engineering experience. Tie those names to the example projects. Operators and licensed specialists on staff can be a differentiator when the criteria mention O&M familiarity.
Funding literacy as a qualifications signal
Many municipal water/WW projects move only when loan or grant funding lands. Showing prior work through IEPA/TWDB-style SRF programs, USDA RD, or similar agencies is fair game when the RFQ asks for it - describe the funding path and your role in applications or compliance, without inventing win rates. For the broader federal-aid overlay, see federally funded local infrastructure pursuits.
Match the plant, then write
Flodoc reads the utility RFQ and ranks staff and past projects against each criterion so you start from the strongest water/WW matches instead of digging through shared drives.
Match the treatment process, not just the sector
'Wastewater experience' is too coarse to score well. Owners evaluating a membrane bioreactor upgrade care about MBR experience specifically; an owner replacing aging clarifiers cares about that unit process. Describe your featured projects at the level of process and unit operations - activated sludge, nutrient removal, disinfection, biosolids handling, collection-system rehabilitation - so an evaluator can see the direct match. The same discipline applies to drinking water: coagulation, filtration, and distribution work are not interchangeable.
Speak to the regulatory drivers
Utility projects are usually driven by a regulatory reality - a discharge permit limit, a compliance schedule, a consent decree, an aging asset at risk of failure, or a capacity constraint from growth. When your qualifications show you understand the driver behind this project and have navigated similar ones, you read as a lower-risk partner. Reference the type of regulatory context you have worked in without overstating outcomes or inventing specifics you cannot support.
Construction-phase services matter
Many utility RFQs weight construction administration, resident engineering, and startup/commissioning support, because owners have been burned by designs that did not build or operate well. If the criteria mention these, feature staff with real construction-phase and commissioning experience and projects where your firm carried the work through startup - not just design. Demonstrating that you stay through construction is often a differentiator against design-only competitors.
Rehabilitation and asset management work
Not every pursuit is a new plant. A large share of water and wastewater work is rehabilitation, condition assessment, and asset management - trenchless collection-system rehab, pump station upgrades, and capital planning. If the RFQ is for this kind of work, lead with comparable rehabilitation and assessment projects rather than greenfield designs, and show the methods (inspection, modeling, prioritization) the owner will rely on.
Public engagement and rate sensitivity
Utility projects are paid for by ratepayers, which makes public communication and cost discipline part of the job. When the criteria or the project context call for it, show experience with public meetings, rate-impact awareness, and phasing that manages affordability. An owner facing a rate increase values a firm that can help explain the project to a skeptical public as much as one that can design it.
Instrumentation, SCADA, and controls experience
Utility owners increasingly evaluate whether your team can carry a project past the process design and into instrumentation and controls. A plant runs on its I&C layer - flow and level instrumentation, PLCs, HMIs, and the SCADA system that ties remote sites back to the plant. When the RFQ mentions automation, telemetry, or a SCADA upgrade, the reviewer wants to see people who have actually specified and commissioned those systems, not just referenced them.
- Name the I&C or electrical engineer who will own controls, and tie them to plants or lift stations where they delivered the controls package
- Distinguish integration work (new PLCs, network architecture, cybersecurity considerations) from field instrument replacement
- If the owner runs a specific SCADA platform or standard, note comparable platforms your team has worked in rather than claiming familiarity you cannot support
- Mention startup, loop checks, and controls commissioning experience when the scope includes bringing a system online
Resilience, redundancy, and emergency-response experience
Owners have to keep water flowing and effluent compliant through storms, power loss, and equipment failure, so many RFQs now ask about resilience and emergency response. This is a distinct qualification from routine design. If your firm has designed standby power, redundant process trains, bypass provisions, or flood-hardening at a treatment plant or pump station, say so plainly and connect it to the criterion. Emergency-response work - a rapid repair after a main break or a storm-damaged facility - is worth citing when it shows you can mobilize and keep a system in service under pressure.
Frame redundancy in terms the owner cares about: continuity of service and permit compliance during an outage. A reviewer scoring a plant that cannot afford downtime will weight demonstrated resilience design higher than a longer list of routine projects.
Collection and stormwater work is not the same as treatment
Reviewers can tell when a firm blurs the line between treatment plants and the systems that feed or drain them. Collection-system work - sewer trunk lines, lift stations, inflow and infiltration studies, capacity assessments - draws on hydraulics and condition assessment more than process design. Stormwater and separate storm sewer work overlaps with drainage, water quality, and permitting under municipal stormwater programs, and it is often a different owner or department entirely.
- Sort your example projects by system type - treatment, collection, conveyance, stormwater - and lead with the ones that match the RFQ's actual scope
- For collection-system RFQs, foreground I&I analysis, flow monitoring, hydraulic modeling, and lift-station rehabilitation rather than plant capacity
- For combined-sewer or MS4 stormwater scopes, show the regulatory framework you worked under and the modeling or water-quality experience it required
- Do not list a marquee treatment plant as evidence of collection-system capability - the reviewer will read it as padding
Coordinating specialty subconsultants
Most water and wastewater projects need geotechnical, electrical, structural, and sometimes corrosion or hydrogeology support. Owners score not just whether those disciplines are covered but whether the prime has managed multidiscipline teams on comparable work. Name your subconsultants, state what each is responsible for, and - where the RFQ allows - point to a past project where the same team delivered together. A team that has worked as a unit reads as lower risk than a roster assembled for the pursuit.
Keep the team page honest
Flodoc ranks your staff and subconsultants against each RFQ criterion, so the strongest and most relevant matches surface first instead of a generic roster.
Tie the SOQ team to the interview
Under QBS, a strong SOQ often earns a shortlist spot and an interview, and the two should line up. The people you put forward on the page should be the people in the room. Owners notice when the project manager and lead engineer described in the SOQ are not the ones presenting, and it undercuts the credibility the document built. Build the qualifications package with the interview in mind: the same key staff, the same example projects, the same understanding of the owner's drivers.
That continuity is easier when the SOQ is organized around the RFQ's criteria from the start. For the underlying structure, see how to write an SOQ that wins, and for the procurement backdrop, see the QBS guide for state and local AEC work.
Common mistakes on water/WW SOQs
- Leading with unrelated civil or transportation projects
- Omitting capacity or process details evaluators need to judge similarity
- Naming a principal who will not touch the job
- Ignoring funding-agency or schedule criteria that were published
- Missing page limits or required certifications