FERRY SERVICE CLOSING

Pensacola’s new passenger ferry service is closing. Captain George Aswad, owner of Gulf Coast Marine Services Incorporated, told WCOA he was hoping to continue the ferry service, but with smaller ferry boats. In a statement emailed to the Pensacola News Journal Aswad said his company lost more than $300,000 in the less than six months it ran the Pensacola service. He said the company will no longer operate the two, 150-passenger ferries and that the National Park Service is looking for another operator. The boats, which each cost 2.6 million dollars, were funded by the National Park Service with 4 million dollars in restitution money from the 2010 BP oil spill and another 1.2 million dollars in federal grants.