QUINCY − In the six-year legal battle over Boston’s planned reconstruction of the Long Island Bridge, Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch is celebrating what he sees as a favorable preliminary order in the city’s appeal of a key permit, a state Chapter 91 draft waterways license granted by the Department of Environmental Protection in August.

Chapter 91 governs the use of coastal and inland waterways.

Boston, on the other hand, has characterized the order as neither positive nor negative for either party. A Boston spokesperson said that, on the contrary, Boston has had the advantage in preliminary proceedings on the appeal.

“Official decisions on permits for Long Island will not come until a hearing in March,” a Boston spokesperson wrote in a statement. “This order, which identifies issues for decision at the future hearing, does not impact the validity of the draft license issued by the State this year or the City of Boston’s position in the appeal.”

What does the new ruling by the MassDEP say?

The order, issued by presiding officer Margaret R. Stolfa, declares that the 1949 Chapter 91 license issued at the time of the bridge’s original construction is void because Boston never recorded the license with the Suffolk County Registry of Deeds, as required.

Boston will need a new Chapter 91 license and cannot claim that the reconstruction project is merely “maintenance and repair” of a previously licensed bridge, the ruling states.

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Stolfa also ordered, over the objection of MassDEP, that the status of the bridge’s existing piers, kept in place when the superstructure was demolished in 2015, will be an issue for adjudication at the appeal hearings scheduled for March 27 and 28 of next year.

Why is Quincy celebrating the ruling?

Quincy has resisted the project from the outset, claiming it would harm its tidelands and wetlands and create traffic congestion in its Squantum and North Quincy neighborhoods.

Quincy has pushed instead for a ferry service to and from the island, an alternative it says would enable Boston to restore the public health campus to the island in more cost effective and timely manner. In the meantime, Quincy has done everything possible to tie up the permitting process in the courts.

“From Day 1 we were saying publicly, ‘Look, there are a number of touchpoints on this project,’ and we were going to hit every touchpoint and create every possible obstacle to keep Boston from building the bridge,” Koch told The Patriot Ledger.

“We are quite pleased with this ruling because it definitely slows everything way down,” he said. “I know a few months back it was a different ruling. The city of Boston was doing a little bit of a victory lap, and obviously that was a bit premature.”

Boston says Quincy has nothing to celebrate in the ruling

In 2018, when then-Mayor Marty Walsh announced Boston’s plan to rebuild the bridge and restore public health services to the island, Boston applied for the Chapter 91 license with MassDEP.

Five years later, shortly after MassDEP granted, and Quincy appealed, the draft license, a surprising development occurred, according to a Boston spokesperson. The original Chapter 91 license issued in 1949 was found in MassDEP archives.

The discovery prompted Boston to argue that Quincy’s appeal was moot because Boston already held the license, court filings say. Reconstruction of the bridge over the existing piers would constitute “maintenance and repairs” of an existing bridge, Boston argued, which would not require a new license.

However, because no record of the license can be found at the Suffolk County Registry of Deeds, the hearing officer determined that the 1949 license is void and the appeal process will go forward as originally planned.

Thus, Boston argues, the ruling only puts the situation back to the status quo before the surprise discovery of the 1949 license.

The spokesperson also said Boston always expected the status of the existing piers to be an issue in the appeal hearings, given that Boston plans to build a new bridge on top of the piers.

Why does Boston claim to have had the advantage thus far in the appeal proceedings?

Boston points to an order issued on Nov. 10 by Stolfa that denied Quincy’s motion to compel Boston to conduct more testing on the piers.

According to the report, Quincy argues that the piers are in a state of advanced deterioration, which will eventually require Boston to conduct more intensive repairs than it has laid out in its plans. This additional work on the piers, Quincy says, would cause significant environmental harm to Quincy’s water resources.

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Boston objected to the motion, saying additional testing would not produce relevant evidence because Boston has already conducted enough testing. Boston also argued that the requested testing, which would entail drilling deep into the piers to extract core samples, would damage the piers.

Stolfa rejected Quincy’s motion, writing that “Boston already performed extensive testing,” according to her Nov. 10 report and order.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Quincy celebrates ruling in protracted dispute over Long Island Bridge