Safety Zones; Coast Guard Sector Ohio Valley Annual and Recurring Safety Zones Update

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 165</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2023-0904]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA11</RIN> <SUBJECT>Safety Zones; Coast Guard Sector Ohio Valley Annual and Recurring Safety Zones Update</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security (DHS). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard is proposing to amend and update its list of recurring safety zone regulations that take place in the Coast Guard Sector Ohio Valley area of responsibility (AOR). Through this rule the current list of recurring safety zones is proposed to be updated with revisions, additional events, and removal of events that no longer take place. This proposed rule would reduce administrative costs involved in producing separate proposed rules for each individual recurring safety zone and serve to provide notice of the known recurring safety zones throughout the year. We invite your comments on this proposed rulemaking. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and related material must be received by the Coast Guard on or before February 22, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2023-0904 using the Federal Decision Making Portal at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> See the “Public Participation and Request for Comments” portion of the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section for further instructions on submitting comments. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> If you have questions about this proposed rulemaking, call or email MST2 Bryan Crane, Sector Ohio Valley, U.S. Coast Guard; telephone 502-779-5334, email <E T="03">SECOHV-WWM@USCG.MIL.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Table of Abbreviations</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">AOR Area of responsibility</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CFR Code of Federal Regulations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">COTP Captain of the Port Sector Ohio Valley</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DHS Department of Homeland Security</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">E.O. Executive Order</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FR Federal Register</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NPRM Notice of proposed rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">AOR Area of Responsibility</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background, Purpose, and Legal Basis</HD> The Captain of the Port Sector Ohio Valley (COTP) proposes to amend section 165.801 of Title 33 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) to update our regulations for annual fireworks displays and other events in the Eighth Coast Guard District requiring safety zones with respect to those in Sector Ohio Valley. The current list of annual and recurring safety zones in Sector Ohio Valley's area of responsibility (AOR) is published under Table 1 of 33 CFR 165.801 for annual safety zones in the AOR. The Coast Guard proposes to amend and update the safety zone regulations under 33 CFR part 165 to include the most up to date list of recurring safety zones for events held on or around navigable waters within Sector Ohio Valley's AOR. These events include air shows, fireworks displays, and other marine related events requiring a limited access area restricting vessel traffic for safety purposes. The current list in 33 CFR 165.801 needs to be amended to provide new information on existing safety zones, and to include new safety zones expected to recur annually or biannually, and to remove safety zones that are no longer required. Issuing individual regulations for each new safety zone, amendment, or removal of an existing safety zone would create unnecessary administrative costs and burdens. This single proposed rulemaking would considerably reduce administrative overhead and provide the public with notice through publication in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> of the upcoming recurring safety zone regulations. The Coast Guard encourages the public to participate in this proposed rulemaking through the comment process so that any necessary changes can be identified and implemented in a timely and efficient manner. The Coast Guard will address all public comments accordingly, whether through response, additional revision to the regulation, or otherwise. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Proposed Rule</HD> Part 165 of 33 CFR contains regulations establishing limited access areas to restrict vessel traffic for the safety of persons and property. Section 165.801 establishes recurring safety zones to restrict vessel transit into and through specified areas to protect spectators, mariners, and other persons and property from potential hazards presented during certain events taking place in the AOR. This section requires amendment from time to time to properly reflect the recurring safety zone regulations in the AOR. This proposed rule would amend and update § 165.801 by revising the current Table 1. This proposed rule would add the following 3 safety zones to the existing Table 1 section 165.801 as follows: <GPOTABLE COLS="4" OPTS="L2,nj,tp0,i1" CDEF="s50,r50,xs64,r50"> <TTITLE> </TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Date</CHED> <CHED H="1">Event/sponsor</CHED> <CHED H="1"> Ohio Valley location </CHED> <CHED H="1">Regulated area</CHED> <ENT I="01">1 day—First or Second weekend in July</ENT> <ENT>Rivesville Firework Show</ENT> <ENT>Rivesville, WV</ENT> <ENT>Monongahela River, Miles 122-124 (West Virginia).</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">1 day in August</ENT> <ENT>Wheeling Water Lantern Tribute</ENT> <ENT>Wheeling, WV</ENT> <ENT>Ohio River, Miles 90-92 (West Virginia).</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">1 day—Labor Day Weekend</ENT> <ENT>Catlettsburg Labor Day Fireworks</ENT> <ENT>Catlettsburg, KY</ENT> <ENT>Ohio River (Mile 317-317.5) Kentucky.</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> These new recurring events would be reflected in the table in the general date order in which they will occur, and the current recurring events would be reordered, as shown in the proposed regulatory text below. This proposed rule would amend the following 2 safety zones to the existing Table 1 section 165.801 as follows: <GPOTABLE COLS="5" OPTS="L2,nj,tp0,i1" CDEF="s50,r50,xs64,r50,r50"> <TTITLE> </TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Date</CHED> <CHED H="1">Event/sponsor</CHED> <CHED H="1"> Ohio Valley location </CHED> <CHED H="1">Regulated area</CHED> <CHED H="1">Previously</CHED> <ENT I="01">1 Day—Recurring one weekend in May and June, and on July 4th</ENT> <ENT>Live on the Levee Fireworks (Previously Live on the Levee Memorial Day fireworks)</ENT> <ENT>Charleston, WV</ENT> <ENT>Kanawha River, Mile 58.1-59.1 (West Virginia)</ENT> <ENT>1 Day—Recurring one weekend in May and June, and on July 4th.</ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="01">23. 1 day—Last weekend in June or first weekend in July</ENT> <ENT>City of Aurora/Aurora Riverfront Beautification—Red, White, and Boom</ENT> <ENT>Aurora, IN</ENT> <ENT>Ohio River, Mile 496.7; 1,400 ft. radius from the Consolidated Grain Dock located along the State of Indiana shoreline at (Indiana and Kentucky)</ENT> <ENT>23. 1 day—Last weekend in June or first weekend in July.</ENT> </ROW> </GPOTABLE> The effect of this proposed rule would be to restrict general navigation in the safety zones during the events. Vessels intending to transit the designated waterway through the safety zones would only be allowed to transit the area when the COTP, or a designated representative, has deemed it safe to do so or at the completion of the event. The proposed annually recurring safety zones are necessary to provide for the safety of life on navigable waters during the events. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Regulatory Analyses</HD> We developed this proposed rule after considering numerous statutes and Executive orders related to rulemaking. Below we summarize our analyses based on a number of these statutes and Executive orders, and we discuss First Amendment rights of protestors. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Regulatory Planning and Review</HD> Executive Orders 12866 and 13563 direct agencies to assess the costs and benefits of available regulatory alternatives and, if regulation is necessary, to select regulatory approaches that maximize net benefits. This NPRM has not been designated a “significant regulatory action,” under Executive Order 12866. Accordingly, the NPRM has not been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The Coast Guard expects the economic impact of this proposed rule to be minimal, therefore a full regulatory evaluation is unnecessary. This proposed rule would establish safety zones limiting access to certain areas under 33 CFR part 165 within Sector Ohio Valley's AOR. The effect of this proposed rulemaking would not be significant because these safety zones would be limited in scope and duration. Additionally, the public would be given advance notification through the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , and/or Notices of Enforcement and, thus, will be able to plan operations around the safety zones. Broadcast Notices to Mariners, Local Notices to Mariners, and Safety Marine Information Broadcasts would inform the community of these safety zones. Vessel traffic would be allowed to request permission from the COTP or a designated representative to enter the restricted areas. Broadcast Notices to Mariners, Local Notices to Mariners, and Safety Marine Information Broadcasts would inform the community of these safety zones. Vessel traffic would be allowed to request permission from the COTP or a designated representative to enter the restricted areas. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Impact on Small Entities</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, 5 U.S.C. 601-612, as amended, requires Federal agenci ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 42k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━