RICHMOND — A yearslong effort to restore ferry service to Swan Island won a small victory with new legislation this month, but advocates will need to convince Maine’s hesitant state wildlife agency to secure long-term public access to the historic island.

On June 9, state legislators approved LD 976, creating a working group to study restoring public transportation to Swan Island, three years after the U.S. Coast Guard shut down the operation for safety and inspection concerns.

LD 976 was expected to automatically become law Sunday, even without Gov. Janet Mills’ signature.

Currently, the public can access Swan Island only with a personal boat or kayak. The ferry that for six decades carried passengers between Richmond and the four-mile-long island has not operated since mid-2022. And the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, the agency that owns the island, has expressed little interest in restoring that ferry service.

The working group will include economic development staff from both the state and nearby Richmond, as well as ferry advocates and a representative from the IF&W.

The law requires the group to come up with a plan for future access by May 2026 to restore public access to the island — a nationally recognized historic site and state wildlife management area that sits at the head of Merrymeeting Bay.

While the legislation advances the prospect of ferry service returning to Swan Island, it wasn’t everything advocates hoped for, largely due to opposition from the IF&W.

In its original version, the bill would have required the IF&W to develop a plan by December to “ensure that accessible, regularly scheduled public transportation is available” to Swan Island.

“When we started working with this potential bill, we were energized,” Jeremy McDaniel, the president of the nonprofit Friends of Swan Island, said. “We had some optimism that something might happen. And, as you know, when legislation is first introduced, it tends to morph into something else. That’s exactly what happened with our bill.”

The bill was introduced and sponsored by Rep. Sally Cluchey, a Democrat who represents Richmond, Bowdoin and Bowdoinham. Cluchey, who had been contacted by Swan Island access advocates, drafted a bill with Sen. Allison Hepler, D-Woolwich, as a co-sponsor. Rep. Bill Bridgeo, D-Augusta, and Rep. Michael Lemelin, R-Chelsea, were also co-sponsors.

The Friends of Swan Island, the nonprofit led by McDaniel that hopes to restore access to the island, was among the groups that reached out to Cluchey to begin working on legislation. McDaniel even tried to run his own ferry from Richmond to the island last summer, but the Richmond pier was decommissioned by IF&W officials just days before service was scheduled to start over safety concerns.

HISTORIC, ECONOMIC VALUE

Much of the value in restoring access to Swan Island, McDaniel said, is its rich history. But that history is not guaranteed to remain intact — the island was listed as one of Maine’s Most Endangered Historic Places in 2023 following the loss of ferry access.

McDaniel said many of the island’s historic homes are in danger of falling into serious disrepair without access for proper preservation efforts.

“History is falling down every single day over there,” he said.

Swan Island was originally settled by indigenous Abenaki peoples thousands of years ago, and researchers have found evidence of human activity on the island from at least 9,000 years ago. After colonization decimated Indigenous populations who lived in what is now Maine, white settlers, including Revolutionary War leaders and retired sea captains, built historic homesteads on the island and founded the town of Perkins.

Eventually, though, pollution in the Kennebec River and the financial hardship of the Great Depression caused residents to abandon the island. The town of Perkins ceased to exist.

The IF&W has largely preserved the land in its 1940s condition, with about 900 acres of forest and 400 acres of open fields. The agency operated the ferry for more than 60 years and upgraded it in 2015. IF&W also spent $300,000 improving the Richmond dock.

The island still hosts a popular free campground, hiking trails and other recreation infrastructure that nearby residents and school groups often enjoyed before the ferry was discontinued.

“We used to have schools from Biddeford come up here and do multi-day classroom sessions — spend the night on the island, wake up and attend classes the entire day, go to sleep, wake up the next day, attend classes,” McDaniel said. “Richmond schools used to have classes out on the island. Today, they don’t even want school groups out on the island. They’ve communicated to us multiple times, they do not want school groups out on the island. It would be, quote, ‘a disruption of their work.'”

Swan Island has also been an economic asset for Richmond through the years. Being 300 feet across the Kennebec River from Swan Island, downtown Richmond has often benefitted from island-related tourism and recreation spending, Cluchey said.

That economic development could be aided, she said, by the development of the Merrymeeting Trail — a rail trail project from Brunswick to Augusta that also resulted from Cluchey-sponsored legislation.

“I think it could help revitalize the community and bring a lot of economic development to not just Richmond, but also Bowdoinham and Gardiner,” she said.

Stacy LaBombard, manager of Annabella’s Restaurant in downtown Richmond, said in her bill testimony that the economic impact of the ferry could be a lifeline for the riverside town’s businesses.

“At Annabella’s, we have noticed an uptick in foot traffic and, therefore, business during the summer months when Swan Island is easily accessible,” LaBombard wrote. “Reinstalling the ferry service would undoubtedly continue to drive this growth, making Richmond an even more attractive destination for tourists.”

A QUESTION OF RESOURCES

The IF&W bought the island from private landowners in the 1940s using funds from the federal Pittman-Robertson Act — a law passed by Congress in 1937 to provide money to state wildlife management agencies through an excise tax on guns. Land purchased under the Pittman-Robertson Act has to be publicly accessible, and Cluchey said the IF&W is arguably failing to comply with federal law by not providing access to Swan Island.

Despite the Friends of Swan Island’s efforts and the requirement for maintaining public access, Cluchey said she has faced consistent opposition from IF&W staff to restoring the Swan Island ferry service.

IF&W Wildlife Division Director Nate Webb, on behalf of the department, testified against the bill during a public hearing in March. He told lawmakers that restoring ferry service “would require significant staff and financial resources, such that other necessary work and priorities within the Department would be impacted.” He said the department hopes to focus on wildlife management and facility maintenance instead.

Webb said “self-access, or access provided by other entities” — the status quo — would be the “most effective way to provide access to the island.”

The IF&W has also argued that no other wildlife management area has received the same treatment as Swan Island. None of the department’s other 71 wildlife preserves require ferry transportation, nor does the department employ any transportation staff for its other lands.

IF&W regional biologist Keel Kemper has said after the ferry stopped running that the situation was a positive: the department could now focus on its wildlife management tasks, and it would be able to expend fewer resources getting people to and from the island.

“Why did we treat Swan Island entirely different?” Kemper said in 2023. “Why do we hire wildlife biologists to carry your ice chests up and down the island? That has always struck me as an odd undertaking.”

Webb estimated a $263,893 cost to bring the ferry back up to standards, including staffing and upgrades to the boat and docks — in addition to a $150,000 cost to improve overnight housing conditions for staff working on the island.

Cluchey said those figures were likely overestimated, and that cost-saving measures could substantially reduce the total.

“I believe that there is funding that they could use, it’s just not a priority,” she said. “What I heard from IF&W was, ‘Look, we’re not going to do anything. If you want us to do something, then the committee is going to have to tell us to.’ So I was like, ‘All right, well, I guess I’ll put in a bill.’ But it’s a bummer.”

IF&W Communications Director Mark Latti declined to comment before the bill became law.

Cluchey’s initial bill would have required the IF&W to develop a plan by December to restore the ferry service. Negotiations whittled that requirement down to the working group format that state legislators approved this month.

“I don’t know what this work group is going to accomplish when (IF&W has) already indicated they have no desire to do it,” McDaniel said.

McDaniel said the best working group outcome for public access advocates is the transfer of the island to another state agency, such as the Bureau of Parks and Lands. He said he is not holding out much hope.

“I just don’t think it’s going to happen because IF&W has no interest in providing (access),” he said, “If they own the island, and they’re telling you they don’t want to provide it, I just don’t know what the working group’s success is going to be.”