Bristol Gets OK to Intervene in PUC Application for Ferry Service

Bristol’s request to intervene in the state public utility commission’s handling of a request for a new ferry service to Prudence Island has been approved. 

Solicitor Mike Ursillo told the Bristol Town Council at its meeting Wednesday night that the town got approval from the RI PUC to intervene in A&R Marine Corporations’s application for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity to operate another ferry service to the Portsmouth island.

The next public hearing on the application is scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 5, at the PUC’s Warwick office at 89 Jefferson Boulevard, said Ursillo.

With the approval from the PUC, the Town Council approved a motion unanimously to get involved. It also sparked a comment by Town Councilor Halsey Herreshoff that it might be beneficial to ferry riders to have two competing ferry services.

Approximately 10 island residents voiced concerns at the first public hearing on the application about the viability of two companies vying for the same 150 or so residents who live there. Two ferry services could mean the failure of both, said residents. That would leave island residents without a way to go back and forth from their homes except with their own water transportation. 

Ferry service back and forth to Prudence Island is handled right now by Prudence Island Ferry, owned by Bruce Medley of Bristol since the mid-1980s. Current ferry passengers park in a lot off of Thames Street on the Bristol waterfront, where the ferry docks. Medley leases dock space from the town of Bristol. 

The issue of a new ferry service taking over for Medley started when he announced he would retire last year. Medley said the ferry service would end on Dec. 1; he has since retracted that statement and the Prudence Island Ferry Service plans to continue its operations.

Medley’s retirement announcement, however, pushed A&R Marine to form Prudence and Bay Islands Transport and apply for the ferry service with the PUC. The company was formed by Ethan Rossi, who holds a captain’s license, and Patricia Rossi, both of Prudence Island, and Stephen Antaya and Danial Antaya, both of Richmond, RI. 

A&R Marine will have to prove that is “fit, willing and able to provide ferry service” and that there is a need for the ferry service because the current service is inadequate or could prove to be inadequate down the road.

Prudence Island Ferry is considered a lifeline carrier – it cannot cease operating without another service to take its place because it is the only way for people to come and go from the island and the mainland.