The future of a trail between American Canyon and Napa is bright, thanks to a $1.03 million state grant.

The grant is the largest so far in the Napa County Regional Park and Open Space District’s 1 1/2-year history. It is one of 20 awarded statewide last week by the California Resources Agency.

The money will pay for the construction of a four-mile segment of a trail that will eventually link American Canyon to Napa. The trail will be built in part along California Department of Fish and Game levees next to former salt ponds the state agency wants restored into wetlands.

Construction could start once the California Department of Fish and Game repairs its levees — possibly in 2010, said John Woodbury, general manager of the Napa County Regional Park and Open Space District.

The four-mile segment will link American Canyon to Green Island Road. It will connect to a two-mile trail system the city will built later this fall through constructed wetlands near the city’s wastewater treatment plant, all the way to the Napa River. That segment could be built later this year with a $600,000 Caltrans grant to American Canyon, according to the city.

Total construction costs for the Napa–American Canyon trail have been estimated at $9 million.

Woodbury said the district was able to use the city’s Caltrans grant as matching funds to win the $1.03 million grant, which will also pay for educational displays along the way.

It will be years before the rest of the trail is built, said Woodbury, who plans to apply for another round of grants to fund the section north of Green Island Road.

American Canyon residents members of the city’s Open Space Advisory Committee have tried for years to find a way to gain access to the Napa River.

Randy Davis, American Canyon Community Services director of the Open Space grant, said residents have a lot of interest in open space and trails.

“It’s going to benefit American Canyon,” Davis said, of the Napa–American Canyon trail.

City Councilman Don Callison Saturday spoke in favor of the trail. “I have a place to ride my bicycle now,” he said.

Stacy Shipman, an American Canyon rsident, said a trail would give people a place to go and get exercise.

The future trail won’t be open to horses, a rule Marcie Harris and Nicci Shores, two American Canyon horseback riders, want changed.

“It would be nice to have a trail to ride on,” said Harris.

While the two-mile path will loop around the city’s manmade wetlands, the city also wants to open a loop trail along the edge of a former dump near the wetlands, where methane gas from the landfill’s waste is converted into electricity.

The city and the Napa-Vallejo Waste Management Authority, the multi-jurisdictional group that administers the former landfill, continue negotiations for a loop trail, Davis said.

The landfill’s faces American Canyon to the east and the Napa River to the west.