The Battle over White’s Ferry

Clip: Season 3 Episode 7 | 2m 2sVideo has Closed Captions

A ferry run for over 200 years is now shut down

After shuttling people across the Potomac for more than 200 years, White’s Ferry is now closed. Some are calling on Loudoun County to invoke eminent domain to resume service.

04/11/2024 | Rating TV-PG

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JOY ZUCKER-TIEMANN: It is unconscionable to me that the economy here has suffered for over three and a half years because this ferry has been shut down.

BILLY SHIELDS: She means White's Ferry docked here on the Maryland side for almost four years while a property dispute in Loudoun County plays out.

CHUCK KUHN: It's a very unfortunate situation.

It ended up being a battle.

BILLY SHIELDS: The ferry ran for more than two centuries and could take more than a thousand cars a day.

Now it's not going anywhere.

AMY FLEISHMAN: Well, we were horrified because we use the ferry quite often to go to Virginia to go to restaurants and shopping.

BILLY SHIELDS: Some say a possible solution is to have Loudoun County appropriate the land under eminent domain to guarantee the ferry's access to the Virginia side.

LINK HOEWING: If eminent domain works, and that's what makes the solution happen.

That's great.

BILLY SHIELDS: The town of Poolesville, Maryland is especially affected.

It is a town surrounded by preserved agricultural land, and the ferry is its best link to Northern Virginia.

LINK HOEWING: We saw about a 20% drop in some of our businesses for a while in the kind of traffic they were getting.

BILLY SHIELDS: The owners of Rockland Farm won the right to shut the ferry down almost four years ago after they sued the ferry company for trespassing on private land, ending a use agreement that had lasted for decades.

A judge ruled that while there was public land, the ferry was given more than a century ago.

It was not clear exactly where that land was.

Now, Rockland Farm is trying to negotiate new terms.

LIBBY DEVLIN: All we're asking for is 50 cents a car.

There's many variations of that.

CHUCK KUHN: That would cause the rates for White Ferry to go up to an extent that people would not be able to use the ferry.

BILLY SHIELDS: The previous price to cross the river was $5 a car.

Poolesville residents like Joy Zucker-Tiemann continue to be frustrated as the ferry continues to sit unused within sight of the banks of Virginia,