Special Local Regulation; Back River, Baltimore County, MD

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 100</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2024-0361]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA08</RIN> <SUBJECT>Special Local Regulation; Back River, Baltimore County, MD</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 is proposing to establish special local regulations to provide for the safety of life on certain waters of the Back River, in Baltimore County, MD. These regulations would be enforced during a high-speed power boat event and air show which will be held annually, on the 2nd, 3rd or 4th weekend (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) in July. This proposed rulemaking would prohibit persons and vessels from being in the regulated area unless authorized by the Captain of the Port, Maryland-National Capital Region, or the Coast Guard Event Patrol Commander. 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 May 30, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2024-0361 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. This notice of proposed rulemaking with its plain-language, 100-word-or-less proposed rule summary will be available in this same docket. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> If you have questions about this proposed rulemaking, call or email Petty Officer Hollie Givens, U.S. Coast Guard Sector Maryland-National Capital Region; telephone 410-576-2596, email <E T="03">MDNCRMarineEvents@uscg.mil.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Table of Abbreviations</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">CFR Code of Federal Regulations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">COTP Captain of the Port, Sector Maryland-National Capital Region</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">PATCOM Patrol Commander</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">SLR Special Local Regulations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background, Purpose, and Legal Basis</HD> Coast Guard regulations define “regatta or marine parade” as an organized water event of limited duration which is conducted according to a prearranged schedule. 33 CFR 100.05(a). And, as explained in 33 CFR 100.15, Coast Guard requires that an organization planning to hold a regatta or marine event apply for a permit if the event, by its nature, circumstances, or location, will introduce extra or unusual hazards to the safety of life on the navigable waters of the United States. These permits may be approved by the Coast Guard, or by the state in which the event is to take place, if there is a Coast Guard-State agreement in place. See 33 CFR 100.10. Upon the approval of an application, the Captain of the Port, Sector Maryland-National Capital Region (COTP) may promulgate such “Special Local Regulations” (SLR's) as he or she deems necessary to insure safety of life on the navigable waters immediately prior to, during, and immediately after the event. <E T="03">See</E> 33 CFR 100.35(a). Tiki Lee's Dock Bar of Sparrows Point, MD has submitted permit applications for two separate but concurrently held annual events in previous years. These events are “Tiki Lee's Shootout on the River High Speed Power Boat” event, and “Tiki Lee's Shootout on the River Air Show.” In the past, the Coast Guard has created temporary SLR's (which expire after a particular year's events have taken place) for the events. Because Tiki Lee's Dock Bar has indicated that it intends to continue to submit applications annually to hold these events (on the 2nd, 3rd or 4th, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in July), however, we are proposing to incorporate the SLR into a permanent rule for these recurring events (33 CFR 100.501). Such permanent rule would not expire, but it would only be subject to enforcement during periods when the events are taking place. The Coast Guard would supplement the rule each year, when an application for the current year's events is approved, with a Notification of Enforcement providing specifics about enforcement times. In “Tiki Lee's Shootout on the River High Speed Power Boat” event, approximately 40 participants compete with one another, completing individually-timed power boat speed runs on a designated, marked, linear course. The course is located in Baltimore County, Maryland, on the Back River, between Porter Point, to the south, and Stansbury Point, to the north. Both the power boat event and the air show are being held adjacent to Tiki Lee's Dock Bar, 4309 Shore Road, Sparrows Point, in Baltimore County, MD, but the speed power boat course area is different from the air show's aerobatic box. Among the hazards the high-speed power boat event pose are the chance that collisions will occur between event participants operating within, or adjacent to the navigation channel designated for the event, and non-participants traveling through that channel, or within approaches to local marinas, boat facilities and waterfront residential communities. In “Tiki Lee's Shootout on the River Air Show,” civilian and military aircraft perform an air show flying low, and at high speeds. Air show performers operate within a designated, marked aerobatics box located on the Back River, between Lynch Point, to the south, and Walnut Point, to the north. Hazards from the air show which would threaten people in vessels traveling in the area if such vessels were allowed to do so without restriction include risks of injury or death resulting from aircraft accidents, being hit by dangerous projectiles or falling debris, and the chance that spectators and through traffic distracted by the air show would collide. Hazards to the environment in the event of a collision include hazardous materials spills. The COTP Maryland-National Capital Region has determined that the potential hazards associated with the high-speed power boat event and air show would be a safety concern for anyone intending to participate in this event and for vessels that operate within specified waters of the Back River. The purpose of this rulemaking is to protect event participants, non-participants, and transiting vessels before, during, and after the scheduled event. The Coast Guard is proposing this rulemaking under authority in 46 U.S.C. 70041. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Proposed Rule</HD> The COTP proposes to establish special local regulations which may be subject to enforcement in a particular year on the 2nd, 3rd or 4th weekend (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) in July. The regulated area for both events would cover all navigable waters of the Back River within an area which is approximately 4,200 yards in length and 1,200 yards in width. It is described with particularity in the draft regulatory text, below. The regulated area is Within the regulated area, specific zones would be designated as a “Course Area,” a “Buffer zone,” an “Aerobatics Box,” and three “Spectator Areas,” the “East Spectator Fleet Area,” the “Northwest Spectator Fleet Area,” and the Southwest Spectator Fleet Area.” These are defined in the draft regulatory text, below. We have filed chartlets in the docket which depict these areas visually to aid commenters, but only the language of the draft regulatory text would be included in the regulation. To access documents mentioned as being available in the docket, go to section V of this document (“Public Participation and Request for Comments”). While there are two separate events and while both are held on the same weekends, the two events will not necessarily occur at the same time, or on the same days. Historically, the air show has occurred on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, while the high-speed power boat runs have occurred on Saturday, with a rain date of Sunday. On Saturday, when both events occur, the high-speed power boat runs have been halted at 2 p.m. to accommodate the air show. The speed runs then have then resumed at 3 p.m. and continue until they have finished. The proposed enforcement periods and and the size of the regulated area were chosen to ensure the safety of life on these navigable waters before, during, and after activities associated with the high-speed power boat event and air show. As is now provided in 33 CFR 10.501(a), the Coast Guard would publish an annual notification of enforcement (identifying the overall enforcement periods and periods of enforcement of particular zones within the regulated area) in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , provide notice in the Fifth Coast Guard District Local Notice to Mariners, and issue a marine information broadcast on VHF-FM marine band radio announcing specific event dates and times. Consistent with 33 CFR 100.35(a), the COTP and the Coast Guard Event PATCOM would have authority to forbid or control the movement of all vessels and persons, including event participants, in the regulated area. When hailed or signaled by an official patrol, a vessel or person in the regulated area would be required to immediately comply with the directions given by the COTP or Event PATCOM, as is now provided in 33 CFR 100.501(d). If a person or vessel fails to follow such directions, the Coast Guard may expel them from the area, issue them a citation for failure to comply, or both. Only participant v ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 27k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━