Officials Seek to Save Connecticut River Ferry Service

The Board of Selectmen in East Haddam will send a letter to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy urging him not to shut down the Chester/Hadlyme ferry service.

The three-member board agreed recently to send the letter in an effort to help save the local ferry service across the Connecticut River.

The Hadlyme ferry service is one of two historic ferry operations on the Connecticut River - the other service runs between Rocky Hill and Glastonbury - and they are funded through the same budget. Therefore, any efforts to save one ferry is likely to impact the other. 

As part of his revised budget plan to close a $1.6 million shortfall, Malloy has proposed shuttering the Chester/Hadlyme and Glastonbury/Rocky Hill ferries. Local officials in those communities, however, have complained that both ferries, which date back to the Colonial-era, are too important historically and culturally to shutter.

East Haddam First Selectman Mark Walter questioned whether closing the ferries would even save the state much money.

“I don’t know where he saves much money shutting down the ferries,” Walter said.

Malloy’s budget recommends $704,124 next year and $799,280 in fiscal year 2012-2013 for both the Rocky Hill/Glastonbury and the Chester/Hadlyme ferries.

Walter and other selectmen also said the ferry service in Hadlyme, a section of East Haddam, plays an important role in the region’s highway system, especially now that the state has begun the Arrigoni Bridge project in Middletown, sending some commuters south to Haddam and East Haddam to get across the Connecticut River.  The ferry service is also a significant tourist attraction locally, they said.

“That ferry ties together so much, Gillette Castle, Devil’s Hopyard. It’s a little bead on a bigger (tourism) chain,” said Selectman Pete Govert.

“I can’t imagine not having that ferry,” added Selectman Emmett Lyman.

Dating back before the Revolutionary War, the Chester-Hadlyme (1769) and Rocky Hill (1655) ferries have persevered over 200 years of American history, managing to remain running through two domestic wars and the Great Depression.

Govert also said the ferry service has an emergency services function when the Haddam Swing Bridge opens for boat traffic and sometimes remains stuck in that position, backing up traffic on both sides of the river.

“It could be a matter of life and death when that bridge gets stuck open.”

The letter, which Walter said he would draft for the board’s approval, will be similar to one sent recently to Malloy by state Sen. Eileen M. Daily, D-Westbrook.

In her letter, Daily also says the ferry services is critical for emergency services, tourism and traffic flow in the region and suggests spreading the service’s costs over three agencies.