The reopening of White’s Ferry — the sole remaining ferry that crosses the Potomac River between Montgomery County and Loudoun County — could be pushed into 2022 because of an ongoing dispute over its use of a private landing on the Virginia side of the river.

Chuck Kuhn, the Virginia-based moving magnate who purchased the ferry earlier this year and pledged to restart service, said in a statement issued Wednesday that he had “encountered obstacles to reopening the ferry,” likely pushing any resumption of service out by 10 months.

According to a spokesperson for Kuhn, those obstacles were the same ones the prior owners faced before they shut down operations in late December: an inability to “come to a reasonable price and reasonable terms for the Virginia landing.”

The landing on the Loudoun County side of the river sits on property owned by Rockland Farm, and for years there were discussions and disputes between the ferry’s owners and the farm over the use of the landing and how much the farm’s owners wanted to charge for it. A Virginia court ultimately ruled in favor of the farm, but the owners insisted they tried to negotiate an agreement with Herb Brown, the Maryland man whose family owned and operated the ferry since 1946. No agreement was ever reached, leading the ferry to shut down service — and prompting Kuhn to come in and buy it.

Kuhn says he is now asking Virginia to use eminent domain to take the landing, a process that could take the rest of the year.

But in a statement, Libby Devlin, one of Rockland’s owners, says that the farm did make Kuhn what she terms a “reasonable” offer: that the ferry pay the farm 50 cents per vehicle it carries across the river, with Loudoun County charged with keeping an accurate count of the car traffic. While it operated, the ferry carried an estimated 600 cars per day, charing $5 per car for a one-way trip and $8 for roundtrip service.

“Instead, Mr. Kuhn continued to push for a permanent easement and threatened to convince County, State, and Maryland officials to pursue condemnation of the Virginia landing if Rockland did not agree to his offer for a permanent easement,” said Devlin in a statement. “Mr. Kuhn’s offer for a permanent sale or easement of Rockland’s landing remained a small fraction of the value of the ferry operation.”

Devlin says the 50-cent per vehicle offer still stands, and is fair given “the ferry’s net income to be several hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.” Devlin and her husband are so committed to the 50 cents per vehicle that her husband painted a large “50¢” on a large retaining wall facing the river on their side of the property.

“Rockland remains open to working with White’s Ferry, County and State officials to get the ferry operating again but insists on fair compensation for the ongoing use of its landing,” said Devlin.

Officials on both sides of the river have been itching to restart ferry service, largely because it remains the only crossing point between Maryland and Virginia from the American Legion Bridge to Point of Rocks some 40 miles to the north.

“We will not be in COVID lockdown forever, and the region’s transportation volumes will return at some level to pre-COVID volumes,” wrote Loudoun County Supervisor Caleb A. Kershner after the ferry closed down in late December. “With the susceptibility of the White’s Ferry crossing and shut down of the American Legion Bridge, there is no better time than the present to get serious about regional transportation needs between Virginia and Maryland.”