Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Old River, Between Victoria Island and Byron Tract, CA

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 117</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. USCG-2023-0231]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA09</RIN> <SUBJECT>Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Old River, Between Victoria Island and Byron Tract, CA</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security (DHS). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Temporary interim rule and request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard is temporarily modifying the operating schedule that governs the draw of the California Department of Transportation (Route 4) highway bridge, mile 14.8 between Victoria Island and Byron Tract, CA. This action is necessary to allow the bridge owner to complete rehabilitation of the bridge after a continuing unexpected delay in installing We can't have and testing of the custom-made electronics. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective March 8, 2024, 33 CFR 117.183 is stayed until 5 p.m. on May 31, 2024. The temporary addition of 33 CFR 117.T184 is effective from 5 p.m. on March 8, 2024 through 5 p.m. on May 31, 2024. Comments and related material must reach the Coast Guard on or before April 8, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> To view documents mentioned in this preamble as being available in the docket, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Type the docket number (USCG-2023-0231) in the “SEARCH” box and click “SEARCH”. In the Document Type column, select “Supporting & Related Material”. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> If you have questions on this temporary interim rule, call or email Carl Hausner, Chief, Bridge Section, Eleventh Coast Guard District; telephone 510-437-3516, email <E T="03">Carl.T.Hausner@uscg.mil.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Table of Abbreviations [Delete/Add Any Abbreviations Not Used/Used in This Document]</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CFR Code of Federal Regulations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Caltrans California Department of Transportation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CADFW California Department of Fish and Wildlife</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DHS Department of Homeland Security</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FR Federal Register</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NPRM Notice of proposed rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Pub. L. Public Law</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background Information and Regulatory History</HD> The Coast Guard is issuing this temporary interim rule without prior notice and opportunity to comment pursuant to authority under section 4(a) of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) (5 U.S.C. 553(b)). This provision authorizes an agency to issue a rule without prior notice and opportunity to comment when the agency for good cause finds that those procedures are “impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest.” Under 5 U.S.C. 553(b), the Coast Guard finds that good cause exists for not publishing a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) with respect to this rule because it is impracticable. This bridge is non-operational and will be non-operational until rehabilitation work can be completed. On October 27, 2022, the Coast Guard issued a General Deviation which allowed the bridge owner, Caltrans, to deviate from the current operating schedule in 33 CFR 117.183 to conduct major mechanical and electrical rehabilitation of the bridge. Due to delays in procuring materials, vandalism of critical electrical submarine cables, and an active winter storm season, the project ran past the end date of April 23, 2023, of the General Deviation. The bridge could not be brought back to operating condition until the delivery of the critical Program Logic Control circuit and the replacement or repairs to the submarine cable could be made. On October 17, 2023, Caltrans informed the Coast Guard that critical electronic components, needed to complete the rehabilitation of the bridge, were still on back-order and not expected to be delivered in time for a project completion deadline of November 30, 2023. It was anticipated that the parts would be delivered in the beginning of the new year, the bridge work completed and the span operational by March 1, 2024. There was insufficient time to provide a reasonable comment period and then consider those comments before issuing the modification. On January 30, 2024, Caltrans notified the Coast Guard that the bridge would not be operational by March 1, 2024. The back ordered critical electronic components have been received and are currently being installed. After the installation of the electronic components, critical testing of the span must be conducted before it is put back into operation. Therefore, it is now anticipated the span will be fully operational by 5 p.m. on May 31, 2024. Under 5 U.S.C. 553(d)(3), the Coast Guard finds that good cause exists for making this rule effective in less than 30 days after publication in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . For reasons presented above, delaying the effective date of this rule would be impracticable and contrary to the public interest due to the fact that the bridge is currently inoperable and will not be back into operation until the rehabilitation work can be completed. We are soliciting comments on this rulemaking. If the Coast Guard determines that changes to the temporary interim rule are necessary, we will publish a temporary final rule or other appropriate document. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Legal Authority and Need for Rule</HD> The Coast Guard is issuing this temporary interim rule under authority in 33 U.S.C. 499. The Coast Guard is modifying the operating schedule that governs the California Department of Transportation (Route 4) highway bridge, mile 14.8 between Victoria Island and Byron Tract, California. The Caltrans Route 4 highway bridge has a vertical clearance, in the closed position, of 12.7 feet at mean high water and unlimited vertical clearance when opened. The existing drawbridge regulation, 33 CFR 117.183, states that the draw of the California Department of Transportation (Route 4) highway bridge, mile 14.8 between Victoria Island and Byron Tract, shall open on signal if at least four hours notice is given to the drawtender at the Rio Vista bridge across the Sacramento River, mile 12.8. Caltrans, the bridge owner, has requested this modification as additional time is required to complete the bridge rehabilitation. Drawtender logs, during a previous test deviation conducted May 5, 2021, to August 7, 2021, recorded the following number of CADFW vessel openings: four in May, eight in June, four in July, and two in August. One survey vessel passed in July. No recreational or commercial vessels requested an opening of the bridge span during that 90-day test deviation. On October 27, 2022, the Coast Guard issued a General Deviation which allowed the bridge owner, Caltrans, to deviate from the current operating schedule in 33 CFR 117.183 to conduct major mechanical and electrical rehabilitation of the bridge. Due to various delays, the project ran past the end date of April 23, 2023, of the General Deviation. On April 20, 2023, the Coast Guard published a temporary interim rule with request for comments that extended the deviation from the operating schedule until November 30, 2023 (88 FR 24336). During the comment period that ended May 22, 2023, no comments were received. On October 17, 2023, Caltrans informed the Coast Guard that critical electronic components, needed to complete the rehabilitation of the bridge, were still on back order and not expected to be delivered in time for a project completion deadline of November 30, 2023. It was anticipated that the parts would be delivered in the beginning of 2024, the bridge work completed and the span operational by March 1, 2024. During the comment period that ended December 28, 2023, no comments were received (88 FR 83026). On January 30, 2024, Caltrans once again informed the Coast Guard that an extension would be needed to complete the rehabilitation of the bridge. The back ordered electronic components have been delivered but installation of the parts is still ongoing, and the span will require testing before it can be put back in service. This temporary interim rule allows for a further deviation from the operating schedule until May 31, 2024. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of the Rule</HD> The Coast Guard is issuing this rule, which permits a temporary deviation from the operating schedule that governs the California Department of Transportation (Route 4) highway bridge, mile 14.8 between Victoria Island and Byron Tract, California. This rule allows the bridge to be secured in the closed-to-navigation position through 5 p.m. on May 31, 2024. As part of the rehabilitation of the bridge, Caltrans has removed and is replacing all the electronics as well as key mechanical components that control the operation of the swing span. On January 31, 2023, vandals caused damage to one of the three newly installed custom-made submarine cables. On April 1, 2023, the contractor informed Caltrans that the custom-made Program Logic Control circuit, which is the circuit that controls the operation of the swing span, was delayed due to supply chain issues. These two critical components of bridge operations, as well as an active storm season, caused the delay of the completion of the rehabilitation of the bridge. On October 17, 2023, Caltrans informed the Coast Guard that critical electronic components, needed to complete the rehabilitation of the bridge, were still on back order and not expected to be delivered to meet the November 30, 2023, deadline, to bring the swing span back into operation. It was anticipated that the parts would be delivered in ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 17k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━