Chris Miller | Oct 9, 2014 on: The Caves at Soda Canyon

I haven’t heard anything form the community since the emails of April. Has anything been going on that I should know of? I recently got a little frustrated with the situation(again) and wrote Linda St. Claire at the county again about my concerns with a)no progress on a PG&E hook up and thus the continual generator noise and b) the lack of compliance in creating a visual screen of vegetation to conceal equipment from view of neighbors. I got this reply Oct. 2;

Mr. Miller,

Thank you for your email. The winery has taken every step I have asked them to take. They have installed the sound mitigation measures which reduced the noise level to under 40 dBls (which is the limit in the Napa County Code). They are following my request for screening in accordance with the use permit conditions. As soon as I asked them to move the exterior lights, they turned them downward as required in the use permit.

I understand your concerns about noise. There is only so much County Code can enforce. We are at that limit now. At this point I can tell you that they have responded to every email and phone call I have made to them. They have responded accordingly to every direction I have given them. The wineries in Napa County operate somewhat like an agricultural processing center and during crush we all know there is going to be additional noise, light and traffic.

The winery applied for and they were granted a building permit to install their PG&E. I have heard that PG&E has been given a copy of the easement from the neighbor which puts limitation on this installation and that the service line is now on hold, or maybe impossible. There is no county code that requires them to install the PG&E and as long as the easement holds them hostage, they will continue to use the generator.

Best regards,

Linda

I wrote her back that it seemed an error that the county would issue a permit without a valid easement in place.

Look forward to anything you or others have been up to on this.