Ticonderoga Ferry fights to keep running

May 6—TICONDEROGA — The independent Fort Ticonderoga Ferry is open for the season, amid a legal fight with the company laying a power transmission line on the bottom of Lake Champlain.

Champlain Hudson Power Express is installing two hydroelectric power cables in Lake Champlain that will carry a 1,250-megawatt, direct-current underground and underwater transmission cable from Quebec and the U.S./Canada border to Queens.

Preparation by CHPE started last year in the southern end of the lake at Whitehall, Dresden and Putnam and its installation is to start heading north toward Ticonderoga later this year.

RUNNING IN QUESTION

Ferry Owner-Operator Jack Doyle said the cable-ferry began running this season on May 4 but its operation could be tenuous.

"I don't know whether I'm going to be shut down in May," he said in an interview with the Press-Republican. "I reached out to them (CHPE) in March of last year. A report showed (old) cables in the ferry corridor. They knew they were there."

Doyle said the old cables are still down there dating back to the 1940s.

"I guarantee you they weren't dragging those old cables out of there," he said. "This ferry has been running on cables since 1946."

CHPE WORK

CHPE says it will remove or reset the old cables before the power cable is buried in the lake bottom, Doyle said.

"There is a spaghetti bowl of old cables down there," he said.

The company filed a successful eminent domain action in New York State Supreme Court that allows its divers to probe the lakebed under the ferry route for the old ferry cables.

Contacted by the Press-Republican, CHPE said the status of their installation under the Fort Ticonderoga Ferry will have minimal impact on ferry operations.

"CHPE is aware that ferry operations are resuming a month earlier this year than in prior years," a statement said. "Despite the early opening, CHPE was able to conduct and conclude its investigation work in April without interfering with ferry operations and will continue to plan upcoming works in a manner that avoids or minimizes any impacts on ferry service."

Doyle said the ferry only started on Memorial Day weekend the previous two years. Before that it was the beginning of May, just like this year, he said.

DISRUPTION FEARS

Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna of Albany, lawyers for Doyle's 1759 Ltd, the company that owns the Fort Ti Ferry, sent a letter to the New York State Public Service Commission asking it to enforce the existing Crossing Agreement between the ferry and CHPE.

Doyle said 1759 Ltd has also filed for injunctive relief in State Supreme Court of Essex County to prevent CHPE from interfering with his company's operation and CHPE has until May 15 to respond.

"They (CHPE) could unilaterally disrupt my business," Doyle said. "CHPE is owned by Blackstone, one of the largest, most powerful private equity firms in America."

Doyle also pointed to an 1811 New York state grant of franchise rights to run the Ticonderoga ferry.

"I think I could solve the whole problem," he said. "But not once have they asked me for any input. They haven't said 'how can we work with you?' What's happening is a travesty. It's not right."

Doyle bought the Fort Ticonderoga Ferry in May 2022 and has been operating it ever since. The ferry normally runs from May to October, an 11-minute crossing between Ticonderoga and Shoreham, Vt.