By KEVIN COURTNEY
Register Staff Writer  
Napa Valley Register

A bucket load of federal economic stimulus money rained down on the Napa flood control project this week, fully funding a dream list of improvements, including flood protection on Napa Creek.

The enormity of the federal allocation — more than $99 million — made local officials deliriously happy.

“We scored,” Napa County Supervisor Bill Dodd said.

“The stars aligned right,” Supervisor Brad Wagenknecht said.

“It was mind-boggling,” Napa Mayor Jill Techel said.

Until Tuesday, Linda Kerr, a Napa Creek neighborhood leader, had resigned herself to remaining vulnerable to flooding for years to come. With the $99 million announcement from Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, creek protection is now on a fast track.

This abrupt turn of flood fortune was “really shocking and exciting,” said Kerr, who hopes that creek construction can start next year.

The $99 million exceeds the total of what the federal government has spent on Napa flood control since 2001. The project had been limping along with annual allocations of around $10 million, which wasn’t enough to keep it from falling further and further behind schedule.

The Napa project was allocated almost 5 percent of the $2 billion in economic stimulus that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers received for flood construction nationwide.

The $99 million will pay for the construction of flood protection along Napa Creek, estimated to cost $31 million, and completely fund the $65 million contract awarded last fall to relocate and elevate Napa Valley Wine Train tracks.

While creek and railroad construction proceed simultaneously, the corps will get $1 million to design the most critical remaining element, a bypass channel to divert flood waters away from downtown and Soscol Avenue’s Auto Row.

Few had expected that the Napa project would be so lavishly funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, but it makes sense, Dodd said Wednesday. “I think this project epitomizes what the stimulus package was designed for,” he said.

Besides being shovel-ready, the flood project will generate jobs, protect businesses and homes against flood losses and propel economic growth once downtown is flood-free, Dodd said.

“I frankly think we had the right project at the right time at the right place,” Dodd said.

“None of us believed we’d be so successful for the project,” Techel said. This major infusion of federal stimulus dollars is a “powerful opportunity to get things done.”

It helped that the corps had signed a $65 million contract for the railroad work, Techel said. If it isn’t completed in three years, the corps would be on the hook for cost overruns, she said.

Elected leaders on the Napa flood board had been cautioned this spring by Julie Lucido, local flood project manager, not to get their hopes up for major stimulus funding.

The word out of Washington was that the Army Corps of Engineers didn’t have nearly enough money to fund all the requests from communities coast to coast, Lucido had said.

On Wednesday, Lucido said this week’s federal allocation would shave years off the project’s schedule. “It’s hard to explain how good this is for the project to keep it moving. It’s hard to overstate how important this is,” she said.

The stage is set to complete the railroad and creek work within the next three years, then move on to digging the bypass.

If that were to happen, perhaps the flood project could be wrapped up by the middle of the next decade, Dodd said.

The project now carries a $398 million price tag, half funded by the federal government, with a countywide half-cent sales tax, approved by voters in 1998, paying the local share.

To date, new bridges and flood terraces have been built and the project is considered to be 50 percent complete.

The impact of stimulus money on the flood schedule is expected to be announced Friday when Rep. Thompson and top corps officials come to Napa to celebrate the funding coup.

Local officials praised Thompson for strongly advocating for flood funding. “I guess Mike Thompson made it happen,” Napa Councilman Jim Krider said.

“We have a congressman with real heft,” Wagenknecht said. It surely helped that Democrat Thompson has a Democrat in the White House, he said.

Source:
Napa Valley Register