Quincy says latest court ruling 'not a green light' to rebuild Long Island Bridge

BOSTON – Quincy was dealt a blow Monday in its fight against Boston over whether to rebuild a bridge connecting Long Island to Moon Island off Squantum.

The Quincy Conservation Commission almost four years ago denied a request by the City of Boston to rebuild the bridge on existing pilings connecting Quincy to the island. The state Department of Environmental Protection then gave Boston the go-ahead, and Quincy appealed to the court.

On Monday, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the  the state Department of Environmental Protection order supersedes the Quincy Conservation Commission's application denial because the commission "did not rest its determination on more stringent local provisions."

The commission largely based its 2018 decision on an engineering report that called Boston’s idea of reusing old concrete foundations “extremely unrealistic.” Boston’s environmental consultant said reusing the piers is an important part of keeping the project as environmentally friendly as possible.

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"The (Quincy) commission does not explain in its brief, and did not explain in its decisions denying Boston's application, how its own analysis differs from the analysis that the DEP was authorized to perform," the court ruled.

Boston had to ask the Quincy Conservation Commission for permission to build the bridge because the project would have an impact on wetlands in Quincy. In denying Boston's application, the commission concluded that the city to the north had not provided enough information on how Boston would mitigate the environmental impacts of repairing and replacing the piers and repairing a road that would provide access to the bridge.

The court said the State Wetlands Protection Act addresses the commission's concerns about how work on the piers would affect fisheries, wildlife habitat, pollution, land under the ocean and land containing shellfish.

"This is obviously not the decision we had hoped for, but it is also not a green light," Chris Walker, chief of staff to Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch, said Monday. "(The ruling) is narrowly focused on only the single issue before the court – not the myriad of additional serious, substantive environmental and logistical concerns that we’ve raised and are still outstanding in various venues."

Boston wants to reopen existing buildings on Long Island and use them to provide addiction and recovery services to residents. Quincy says the bridge, accessible only by a road that runs through Squantum, would put an undue burden on local neighborhoods and that Long Island could be accessed by ferry.

A lawsuit by the City of Quincy challenging the issuance of a Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act certificate for the project is pending in Suffolk Superior Court. Boston's argument hinges on the idea that using the existing pilings constitutes the rebuilding of an existing bridge. Quincy says the project qualifies as building a new bridge, which would force a more rigorous environmental review.

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Boston would still need more approvals before the bridge could be built, including a Chapter 91 Waterways Permit, a Coast Guard permit and Quincy Planning Board approval.

"The city is going to continue to press its case through all available avenues that the City of Boston has proposed an environmentally and structurally deficient bridge design that would’ve only been acceptable had it been permitted when the bridge was originally built almost a century ago," Walker said.

Quincy has spent roughly $550,000 fighting the bridge since 2018.

The push for ferry service from Boston to Long Island got a vote of confidence last week when the state Senate approved a $10 million bond bill that includes money for the service.

The bill includes a $10.4 million amendment proposed by state Sen. Nick Collins, D-Boston, that was unanimously approved by the Senate. The amendment would pay for the infrastructure needed to run daily ferry service from Long Island. The bill  now heads to a conference committee.

Reporter Michael P. Norton of the State House News Service contributed to this report. 

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This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Quincy loses Long Island Bridge court case against Boston