Gagetown ferry fight continues amid vessel being stripped for sale

Gagetown-area residents say work to strip the local decommissioned ferry started on Tuesday, but they still haven't given up hope of seeing the service restored.

Some members of the Save Gagetown-Jemseg Ferry committee have a previously scheduled meeting with Transportation Minister Bill Fraser on Thursday morning, when they plan to continue their lobby, said member Hugh Harmon.

"We're disgusted," said Harmon, who witnessed a truck and crane on the ferry on Tuesday morning with the engine compartment open.

"They are taking the engine out of it and hauling all of the wiring out of it and crippling it so it has to be sold as scrap and — end of issue."

Equipment salvaged for fleet

The Department of Transportation confirmed early Tuesday evening that workers were onsite, recovering salvageable items from the ferry earlier in the day.

Items being recovered included a generator used to provide ancillary power, a hydraulic pump and hydraulic motor and lifesaving equipment, spokesman Shawn Berry said in an email to CBC News.

"These are pieces of equipment that can be used elsewhere in the fleet if needed," he said.

"Saving components that are still usable is a normal practice when a vessel is no longer in service and is being prepared for sale."

Just last week, the minister told CBC's Shift the decision to eliminate the ferry service between Gagetown and Lower Jemseg was final and the government would be issuing a tender within a couple of weeks for the sale of the vessel, along with two other decommissioned ferries.

"I sympathize with the people of Gagetown, I understand it was a very tough decision for them to hear and to have to deal with," Fraser had said. But "it's time to move on from the ferry debate."

This isn't over until we say it's over. We're not going to stop.- Hugh Harmon, Save Gagetown-Jemseg Ferry

Harmon disagrees. "Our opinion is this isn't over until we say it's over. We're not going to stop; we told them that right from the beginning," when it was announced in February, he said.

"We're not moving on. We've got nowhere to move on to … We can't operate without it."

Without the free cable ferry service across the St. John River, residents must drive about 70 kilometres round-trip for everything from medical appointments to church services. By comparison, the ferry trip takes only about seven minutes each way. 

Committee members, who have posted "Save Our River Ferries" signs throughout the St. John River Valley, argue the ferry underwent a $143,000-refit last summer and would only cost between $150,000 and $250,000 a year to operate.

But the government contends the 59-year-old vessel needed to be replaced at an estimated cost of $5 million.

"The decision not to replace the vessel was based on the fact significant capital investments were required to maintain the Gagetown ferry service, that this ferry has among the lowest ridership of any ferry in the system and that there is an alternate route using the Trans-Canada Highway," Berry said on Tuesday.

The former Liberal government of Shawn Graham announced it would axe the Gagetown ferry in 2009-10, but backed down on that decision after a lobbying blitz.

The Belleisle Bay, Evandale, Westfield, Kennebecasis Island, Gondola Point and Millidgeville ferries will remain in service, Fraser has said.