While Curtatone held out the prospect of prolonging the legal fight against the Everett casino, he said the city would not ask the state Department of Environmental Protection to reconsider its recent approval of the waterfront permit. The deadline for that appeal was Tuesday.

“Our goal has never been to stop the casino,” he said. “It’s always been to mitigate the negative effects on our environment, and protect the health and safety of our residents . . . If we can further those goals by [seeking] a judicial review, we will.”

Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone said Tuesday that city officials are giving “strong consideration” to appealing the state’s approval of a key waterfront permit for the $2.1 billion Wynn Resorts casino in Superior Court.


Curtatone said city officials decided well before the deadline against petitioning the DEP.

“Based on the decisions we had seen, we’re holding firm on our ability to seek a legal review,” he said.

The city has until Aug. 22 to file an appeal in Superior Court.

Somerville appealed the DEP’s initial decision to grant the waterfront permit earlier this year, contending that Wynn Resorts should take additional steps to offset the project’s environmental impacts.

The appeal forced Wynn Resorts to halt cleanup work at the 33-acre property, just across the Mystic River from Somerville, and sparked a public war of words between Curtatone and Wynn officials.

But on July 22, DEP Commissioner Martin Suuberg issued a final approval for the permit, the casino’s last major regulatory hurdle. The DEP has not granted a request for reconsideration in recent memory, spokesman Ed Coletta said.

Now that the deadline to appeal has passed, the state could issue the license “within the next two days,” Coletta said.

Greg John, a spokesman for Wynn Resorts, would not comment on Somerville’s legal decisions, but said the company had begun work on parts of the development that are unrelated to the waterfront license.


“We have more than a dozen cranes there,” John said.

Wynn Resorts may also hold a ceremony Thursday to celebrate the waterfront permit, he said.

“Once we get the license, it’s going to be an immediate go,” he said.

Cleanup efforts at the site — a contaminated property once home to a Monsanto chemical plant — are estimated to cost $30 million.

Somerville has filed four lawsuits against the casino project, including a challenge to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission’s 2014 decision to award Wynn Resorts the casino license for the Boston region.

Other lawsuits involve the state’s approval of a municipal harbor plan for Everett, the state’s overall environmental review, and a state finding that the project would be a public benefit, according to Somerville city officials. All four lawsuits are pending, the officials said.

The waterfront permit calls for Wynn Resorts to preserve more than six acres of open space at the site and run a ferry service for visitors. As part of the development, Wynn Resorts plans to provide public access to the waterfront along landscaped paths and parks.

Curtatone said he was pleased the state “recognized and addressed our concerns in those areas.”

City attorneys, he said, are now “continuing to analyze the longstanding impact of this decision on Somerville.”

Kathy McCabe can be reached at Katherine.McCabe@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @GlobeKMcCabe.