The highest ranking federal official ever to visit the Napa flood control project returned a second time Wednesday to offer praise, but not extra money.

John Woodley Jr., assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, said Napa was fortunate to be receiving partial funding at a time of tight federal budgets when hundreds of communities are getting no money at all.

To keep the Napa project from falling further behind schedule, Woodley said efforts to declare Napa a "project of national significance" might bear fruit.

Until now, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has funded Napa purely as a flood control project. The funding calculation has ignored the project's major ecological benefits, he said.

If all the project's benefits were thrown into the cost-benefit analysis, Napa might have a higher priority, said Woodley, who toured the Napa River south of Third Street by boat.

The local flood district's lobbyist, Mia O'Connell, briefed the flood board Tuesday on efforts to win "national significance" honors in time for the 2007-09 funding cycle.

Meanwhile, the project continues to fall behind schedule. Federal allocations over the past six years have totaled $60.7 million, some $40 million less than the Corps of Engineers requested.

Once intended for completion in 2006, the project now has a shaky 2011 completion date that is likely to slip further.

The devastating New Year's Eve flood that caused millions of dollars' worth of damage in Napa would have been a minor event if the flood project, now 40 percent complete, had been finished, flood officials say.

Meanwhile, residents and businesses in the Napa Creek flood zone are asking the flood district to make the creek the top priority for the next phase of flood improvements.

With federal funding running short of the need, this puts the flood district in a hard spot, possibly having to pick from among competing community demands for flood protection.

Napa County is funding its share of the quarter-billion-dollar flood project with a half-cent sales tax approved by voters in 1998. The federal government is obligated to pay half for construction of flood defenses.

Woodley, who toured Delta levees by helicopter on Tuesday, said the Napa flood project was one of three or four "showcase" projects nationally. By restoring the river's natural waterway, the corps is achieving both flood control and environmental benefits, he said.

After viewing restored wetlands near the Butler Bridge, Woodley praised the early ecological impacts. "The waterfowl using this ecosystem today are astonishing in their variety and abundance," he said.

Napa Mayor Jill Techel, who accompanied Woodley on the boat tour, said every VIP visit helps Napa in its uphill fight to increase state and federal funding.

"We're small. We don't have a huge voter population, but we are known," Techel said.

Napa has racked up an impressive list of notables who have visited the river over the past six months, Techel said. "We've had Woodley, we've had (Sen. Dianne) Feinstein, we've had the governor here. That's a lot of face time for the community," she said.

"They usually don't come if they're not going to help you," she said.