Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Apalachicola River, River Junction, FL

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard </SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 117 </CFR> <DEPDOC>[CGD08-03-007] </DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA09 </RIN> <SUBJECT>Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Apalachicola River, River Junction, FL </SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard proposes to establish a drawbridge operation regulation for the draw of the CSX Railroad swing bridge across the Apalachicola River, mile 105.9, at River Junction (near Chattahoochee), Florida. The regulation will allow for the bridge to be unmanned and remain closed during hours of infrequent traffic with an advance notification requirement to open the bridge. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and related material must reach the Coast Guard on or before June 9, 2003. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may mail comments and related material to Commander (obc), Eighth Coast Guard District, 501 Magazine Street, New Orleans, Louisiana 70130-3396, or deliver them to room 1313 at the same address above between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. The Commander, Eighth Coast Guard District, Bridge Administration Branch maintains the public docket for this rulemaking. Comments and material received from the public, as well as documents indicated in this preamble as being available in the docket, will become part of this docket and will be available for inspection or copying by appointment at the Bridge Administration Branch, Eighth Coast Guard District between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Mr. David Frank, Bridge Administration Branch, at the address given above or telephone (504) 589-2965. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Request for Comments </HD> We encourage you to participate in this rulemaking by submitting comments and related material. If you do so, please include your name and address, identify the docket number for this rulemaking (CGD08-03-007), indicate the specific section of this document to which each comment applies, and give the reason for each comment. Please submit all comments and related material in an unbound format, no larger than 8 <FR>1/2</FR> by 11 inches, suitable for copying. If you would like to know that they reached us, please enclose a stamped, self-addressed postcard or envelope. We will consider all comments and material received during the comment period. We may change this proposed rule in view of them. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Public Meeting </HD> We do not now plan to hold a public meeting. However, you may submit a request for a public meeting by writing to the Commander, Eighth Coast Guard District, Bridge Administration Branch at the address under <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> explaining why a public meeting would be beneficial. If we determine that one would aid this rulemaking, we will hold one at a time and place announced by a later notice in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background and Purpose </HD> The CSX swing bridge across the Apalachicola River, mile 105.9, presently opens on signal for the passage of vessels. The bridge owner has requested to change the operation regulations so that the bridge be required to open on signal only from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. At all other times, the bridge would open on signal if at least four hours advanced notification is given. The request was made based upon a documented decrease in the number of requests for openings in the last three years. In 2000, the bridge opened 63 times for the passage of vessels. In 2001, the bridge opened 38 times for the passage of vessels. In the first five months of 2002, the bridge opened 15 times for the passage of vessels. Information gathered regarding the decrease in vessel movements indicates that the closure of a sand and gravel facility above the bridge and a prolonged drought are the main contributing factors. While water elevations may return to their pre-drought levels, there is presently no evidence that the number of requests for bridge openings will increase in the future due to limited industrial development along the waterway. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion of Proposed Rule </HD> The proposed rule will have no effect on the existing operation of the bridge between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday when the bridge will open on signal to accommodate marine traffic. At all other times the bridge will only open if four hours advance notice is provided. This change is proposed to reduce the financial burden on the drawbridge operator of maintaining bridge tenders at times that there is little or no vessel traffic. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Regulatory Evaluation </HD> This proposed rule is not a “significant regulatory action” under section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866 and does not require an assessment of potential costs and benefits under section 6(a)(3) of that Order. The Office of Management and Budget has not reviewed it under that Order. It is not “significant” under the regulatory policies and procedures of the Department of Homeland Security. We expect the economic impact of this proposed rule to be so minimal that a full Regulatory Evaluation under the regulatory policies and procedures of DHS is unnecessary. Prior to proposing this rule, the Coast Guard analyzed the bridge usage records and determined that requiring four hours notice during off peak periods would have minimal impact on commercial vessel traffic. This proposed rule allows vessels ample opportunity to transit this waterway during normal weekdays and with minimal notification at all other times. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Small Entities </HD> Under the Regulatory Flexibility Act (5 U.S.C. 601-612), we have considered whether this proposed rule would have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. The term “small entities” comprises small businesses, not-for-profit organizations that are independently owned and operated and are not dominant in their fields, and governmental jurisdictions with populations of less than 50,000. The Coast Guard certifies under 5 U.S.C. 605(b) that this proposed rule would not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. The proposed rule would affect the following entities, some of which might be small entities: the owners and operators of vessels requiring a vertical clearance of greater than 17.4 feet above Ordinary High Water and needing to transit the bridge outside of the 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekday time frame. The impacts to small entities will not be significant because of the limited number of openings required by these vessels. This is not considered to have a significant impact on a substantial number of small entities. If you think that your business, organization, or governmental jurisdiction qualifies as a small entity and that this proposed rule would have a significant economic impact on it, please submit a comment ( <E T="03">see</E> <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ) explaining why you think it qualifies and how and to what degree this proposed rule would economically affect it. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Assistance for Small Entities </HD> Under section 213(a) of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-121), we want to assist small entities in understanding this proposed rule so that they can better evaluate its effects on them and participate in the rulemaking. If the proposed rule would affect your small business, organization, or governmental jurisdiction and you have questions concerning its provisions or options for compliance, please contact the Bridge Administration Branch, Eighth Coast Guard District at the address above. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Collection of Information </HD> This proposed rule would call for no new collection of information under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501-3520.). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Federalism </HD> A rule has implications for federalism under Executive Order 13132, Federalism, if it has a substantial direct cost of compliance on them. We have analyzed this proposed rule under Executive Order 13132 and have determined that this proposed rule does not have implications for federalism. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Unfunded Mandates Reform Act </HD> The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (2 U.S.C. 1531-1538) requires Federal agencies to assess the effects of their discretionary regulatory actions. In particular, the Act addresses actions that may result in the expenditure by a State, local, or tribal government, in the aggregate, or by the private sector of $100,000,000 or more in any one year. Though this proposed rule would not result in such an expenditure, we do discuss the effects of this rule elsewhere in this preamble. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Taking of Private Property </HD> This proposed rule would not affect a taking of private property or otherwise have taking implications under Executive Order 12630, Governmental Actions and Interference with Constitutionally Protected Property Rights. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Civil Justice Reform </HD> This proposed rule meets applicable standards in sections 3(a) and 3(b)(2) of Executive Order 12988, Civil Justice Reform, to minimize litigation, eliminate ambiguity, and reduce burden. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Protection of Children</HD> We have analyzed this proposed rule under Executive Order 13045, Protection of Children from Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks. This proposed rule is not economically significant and would not create an environmental risk to health or risk to safety that might disproportionately affect children. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Indian Tribal Governments</HD> ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 13k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━