Ferry’s absence also affects Amherst islanders

thewig.com
Oct. 15, 2015
By Elliot Ferguson

Amid the questions and complaints hurled at Ontario Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca Wednesday night were pleas for help from residents of the other island affected by the absence of the Wolfe Islander III.

Since April, when the Frontenac II began servicing the Kingston-to-Wolfe Island route, residents of Amherst Island have had to make do with the 18-car Quinte Loyalist ferry that usually sails the Glenora crossing to Prince Edward County.

The smaller ferry, which has no passenger lounge or toilet, has been criticized for not being suitable for the crossing from Millhaven to the island.

A portable toilet and metal shipping container were placed on the ferry’s deck to provide some amenities, but the ferry’s small size makes it unsuitable and uncomfortable, island residents say, inconveniences as great as those endured by Wolfe Island residents.

The temporary lounge takes up two of the ferry’s 18 vehicle spaces.

The inconveniences are made all the worse by the fact that trips to Amherst Island cost $9 per passenger vehicle.

For some island residents, the costs are far more than ferry fees.

Farmer Bruce Caughey planted approximately 120 hectares (300 acres) of corn this year but struggled to get the supplies he needed.

“When we went to seed the crop with nitrogen this year, we weren’t able to get the nitrogen on the ferry. The applicator wouldn’t come on this ferry,” he said.

His supplier was able to rig a replacement vehicl,e but by the time he got his nitrogen on the corn, the crop had suffered damage.

Earlier this year, a truck of milk from Caughey’s farm waited in line for three trips before finally getting on the ferry, but by the time it got to the processor, the milk’s temperature had risen too much and the load was spoiled.

“Now it’s harvest time. Yesterday we spent four hours trying to get 10 tons of corn to market,” Caughey said.

“I don’t know how we are going to get our product to market.”

Caughey said the government needs to fast-track construction of end-loading docks in Millhaven and Stella to allow larger vehicles onto the island.

“Side-loading facilities are 1924 technology,” he said.

The limits of side loading were emphasized during the Quinte Loyalist’s time on the route, and island resident Greg Latiak said he and his neighbours have been waiting for decades for end-loading docks to be built.

“This experience has cost island businesses many millions of dollars in lost revenues and customers - and of course tax dollars to the province,” he wrote in an email to the Whig-Standard. “I am at a loss to understand why business- and resident-hostile policies continue to drive the local island economies downward.”

The delays at the docks have made travel to and from Amherst Island an ordeal, Latiak wrote.

“Going to town is like planning on going to the moon.”

Ironically, island residents received a letter in the mail Thursday from the Ministry of Transportation about the planned rebuild of the docks starting next year.

The construction of the new end-loading docks is to start in 2017 and be completed by early 2019 at the latest, according to the MTO.