Issues Facing the District
Reliable Today. Resilient Tomorrow.
South Tahoe Public Utility District is entering a period of transition and measured investment. The District must continue providing safe, reliable, and affordable water and wastewater services while responding to aging infrastructure, increasing capital needs, wildfire and other natural hazards, changing regulatory requirements, workforce challenges, and rising costs. At the same time, STPUD has a responsibility to protect Lake Tahoe and manage the community’s water and wastewater resources for future generations. Many of these challenges are interconnected. Aging infrastructure increases the potential for service disruptions and drives the need for capital investment. Wildfire, power outages, and climate-related hazards require greater redundancy and resilience. Increasing infrastructure and operating costs place pressure on customer rates and make financial planning, outside funding, and operational efficiency increasingly important. The District must also maintain the skilled workforce, organizational capacity, technology, and partnerships necessary to successfully deliver an ambitious capital program and increasingly complex utility services. Shane believes these challenges also present opportunities. Strategic investment can simultaneously improve reliability, strengthen wildfire preparedness, protect Lake Tahoe, increase operational efficiency, and reduce long-term risk. New technologies, regional partnerships, grants and low-interest financing, improved asset management, and long-range planning provide opportunities to address infrastructure needs while managing impacts to customers.
Assets & Infrastructure
Aging Infrastructure
Much of South Tahoe’s water and sewer infrastructure dates to the 1950s and 1960s. The District reported more than 1,000 water leaks over a recent five-year period, while significant portions of the sewer collection, pumping, treatment, and recycled-water systems also require rehabilitation. The issue is no longer simply identifying projects - it is executing a large capital program effectively. Shane believes the District needs to prioritize projects based on risk, condition and consequence of failure; maintain realistic delivery schedules; coordinate construction with partners; strengthen asset management; and demonstrate measurable improvements in system condition.
Fiscal Responsibility
Affordability
Ratepayers trust STPUD with their money every time they pay a water bill. That trust must be earned through careful budgeting, pursuit of grant funding, competitive procurement, and honest accounting. To reduce cost burdens on customers, Shane believes the District needs to aggressively pursue grants and low-interest financing, continue customer assistance programs, and continue communicating customer benefits of the District's capital investments and services. Shane will scrutinize every major expenditure, ask hard questions about cost-effectiveness, and push back on spending that doesn't serve the community's core needs.
Natural Hazards
Wildfire and Community Resilience
Wildfire fundamentally changes the role of a mountain water utility. STPUD's water system is not simply drinking-water infrastructure - it is also critical wildfire-response infrastructure. Shane supports the District's plans for waterline replacement and fire-flow improvements and broader hazard mitigation measures such as backup generators, infrastructure hardening, fuels treatments, redundant water sources, flood mitigation measures, and strategically placed fire hydrants.
avoid service disruptions
Water Supply, Conservation and Climate Adaptation
STPUD must protect the reliability and quality of its groundwater supplies while anticipating climate variability, changing demand, and regulatory requirements. Shane supports the District's program for maintaining and rehabilitate wells; protecting groundwater quality; providing water supply redundancy; continuing water conservation measure; monitoring water quality and changing demand and climate conditions; and incorporating wildfire and post-fire risks into water-supply planning.
Employees make it happen
Workforce and Organizational Capacity
The people at STPUD are as important as its water and waste water systems. The District's infrastructure capital improvement program and sophisticated utility cannot be delivered without the people, leadership, and organizational culture necessary to execute it. Shane believes the District needs continued focus on its people - leadership succession, recruitment and retention, technical skills, knowledge transfer, employee development, cross-department collaboration, accountability, organizational trust, and clearly defined responsibilities.
Service to our community
Public Trust, Customer Communication, and Demonstrated Value
STPUD will need support from its customers to continue improvements to water and waste water improvement program. Shane strongly believes that customers need to understand what they receive for their dollar: safe drinking water, wastewater collection and treatment, protection of Lake Tahoe, wildfire fire-flow capacity, emergency resilience, recycled-water management, environmental compliance, and infrastructure that supports the regional economy. He will work to ensure the District communicates progress made to benefit South Tahoe's community.
Stand with Shane on These Issues
Join South Lake Tahoe neighbors who believe in steady, community-rooted leadership for STPUD.