Napa Valley Leaders, Utility Reps Celebrate Major Highway 29 Milestone

After years of planning and construction work, the first and largest part of a utility undergrounding project has been completed on Highway 29.

"The whole experience of driving from Rutherford to St. Helena will be improved," said Napa County Supervisor Diane Dillon, whose district includes the project.

Dillon spoke Thursday before about 20 people at a celebratory gathering just off Highway 29 in St. Helena where PG&E crews were "wrecking out," or taking off, the top of the power poles where the electrical connections used to be.

When the undergrounding is finally completed in April 2015, utility power from PG&E, Comcast and AT&T will all be underground, 176 power poles will be gone, and Caltrans will begin installation of a center turning lane along the heavily travelled route north of Yountville.

The project is funded by thousands of Napa County and St. Helena utility ratepayers who pay a few cents a month on their PG&E bills. Each jurisdiction -- Napa County and St. Helena in this case -- collects "credits" from the bill payments toward a public works project of their choice.

In the 1990s, Napa County completed the undergrounding and turning lanes on Highway 29 between Oakville and Rutherford using the utility credits.

Then, however, a plan to continue the undergrounding north to St. Helena was stalled over a legal dispute about easements needed at the Whitehall Lane train crossing for the Napa Valley Wine Train.

In 2005, the state Court of Appeals ruled that Napa County did not have to go through the state Public Utilities Commission to get permission to enact eminent domain to acquire the train crossing because, the court ruled, the Wine Train was not a public carrier.

That cleared the way for new planning work on the Rutherford-to-St. Helena link to begin, with design and engineering launching in 2010 and trench channel construction starting in 2012, according to David Phillips, PG&E's project manager.

"This is the biggest 20A project in PG&E history," Phllips said, noting that its "joint trench" for the underground utilities will ultimately span eight miles and result in removal of 176 power poles. Four of the miles will on Highway 29, and the rest on side streets.

Dillion and St. Helena Mayor Ann Nevero said the undergrounding and turning lanes will not only improve the appearance of the highway, but also enhance safety and traffic flow -- especially for fire and police emergency vehicles that currently struggle to get through the one-lane-each-way gridlock.

"It's not only a visibility enhancement, it's a safety enhancement," Dillon said.

Shannon Kuleto, public relations coordinator for Access St. Helena, as the project is known, said the electricity "cut-over from poles to ground was 100 percent complete as of last week."

Kuleto said she and others on her team worked with the surrounding affected wineries and business owners to prepare them for and educate them about the electricity cutoff and traffic impacts to "make the pain easier to bear," she said.

"The businesses recognized that it was only temporary," she said.

The next phase, which involves AT&T pulling their utiiity power off the poles and into the trenches, should be much less disruptive, she said.

"There will be little, if any, impact," she said.