Safety Zones; Aerial Drone Displays, Hudson and East Rivers, New York, NY

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 165</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2024-0225]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA00</RIN> <SUBJECT>Safety Zones; Aerial Drone Displays, Hudson and East Rivers, New York, NY</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 specific areas of the Hudson and East Rivers where safety zones will be enforced on the navigable waters beneath aerial drone shows. This action is necessary to protect personnel, vessels, and the marine environment from potential hazards created by aerial drone displays. This proposed rulemaking would prohibit persons and vessels from being in the safety zone unless authorized by the Captain of the Port Sector New York or a designated representative. 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 June 24, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2024-0225 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 MST1 Melanie Hughes, Sector New York Waterways Management Division, U.S. Coast Guard; 718-354-4352, <E T="03">melanie.a.hughes1@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">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">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background, Purpose, and Legal Basis</HD> Since November of 2022, U.S. Coast Guard Sector New York has received 11 requests for drones shows within the Captain of The Port's (COTP) area of responsibility. Of those 11 requests, eight have either taken place or were planned to take place in areas above the Hudson and East Rivers. In all cases, the sponsors of the drone shows have requested safety zones beneath the drones' flight path. The request for safety zones is driven by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulation that drones cannot safely fly over human beings. It is becoming increasingly more common to hold drone shows over the water to reduce the number of occupants immediately below a drone show. Typically, drone shows are comprised of approximately 500 to 1,000 lighted drones, weighing approximately four pounds each, moving throughout a predetermined airspace creating images in the night sky. On average, these drones fly between 100 feet and 400 feet above the waterline but can fly as low as 75 feet and reach heights of up to 600 feet. Risks associated with drone shows include, but are not limited to, the overhead hazard created by drones potentially falling from the sky and vessel clearance reduction. Some commercial vessel pilothouses and sailboat masts can reach upwards of 200 feet above the waterline thus creating a potential for colliding with drones mid-flight. The COTP has determined that the potential hazards associated with drone shows are a safety risk for any human or vessel directly underneath. Additionally, some drone shows in the past have conducted practice shows in the same location as the actual drone show, typically a day or two before the actual event. These practice flights pose the same hazards as the actual shows. For this reason, the Coast Guard proposes to establish safety zones for practice flights as well. Accordingly, the purpose of this rulemaking is to ensure the safety of human life and vessels on the navigable waters of the Hudson and East Rivers underneath drone shows due to the posed hazards. The Coast Guard is proposing this rulemaking under authority in 46 U.S.C. 70034. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Proposed Rule</HD> The COTP is proposing to establish specific areas on the Hudson and East Rivers in which safety zones of limited duration can be enforced underneath aerial drone shows. This action is necessary to protect personnel, vessels, and the marine environment from potential hazards created by aerial drone displays. This proposed rulemaking would prohibit persons and vessels from being in the safety zone unless authorized by the COTP Sector New York or a designated representative. The safety zone for a drone show will last for a limited duration of approximately 10 to 30 minutes while the drones are in the air. The areas permissible for safety zones for drone shows may be anywhere within the two zones described below. Zone 1 will consist of all navigable waters of the Hudson River beginning at a point near Liberty State Park at approximate location 40°42′20.9″ N 74°02′05.7″ W traveling north along the shoreline including Morris Canal Basin to a point approximately 300 yards north of Port Imperial Ferry terminal at approximate position 40°46′41.1″ N, 74°00′30.4″ W thence to Pier 99 Manhattan then traveling south along the shoreline to a point near Whitehall South Ferry terminal and back to the point of origin. Zone 2 will consist of all navigable waters of the East River beginning at a point near Whitehall South Ferry terminal, approximate position 40°42′01.6″ N, 74°00′48.7″ W then travel north along the shoreline to East 90th Street Ferry terminal thence to a point near 27th Ave Hallets Point, Astoria at approximate position 40°46′33.2″ N, 73°56′13.4″ W and then traveling south along the shoreline, excluding Newtown Creek, to a point near Pier 6 Brooklyn and back to the point of origin. The rule would allow the COTP to establish safety zones for drone shows on all navigable waters of the Hudson and East Rivers up to a 500-yard radius within the boundaries identified as Zone 1 and Zone 2. Entry into the safety zone will be prohibited unless authorized by the COTP or designated representative. The COTP will make notification of the exact dates and times in advance of each enforcement period to the local maritime community through marine broadcasts, local notice to mariners, local news media, distribution in leaflet form, or by an on-scene oral notice and signage. The areas permissible to establish safety zones for drone shows are depicted in dark gray in the chart below. <GPH SPAN="3" DEEP="426"> <GID>EP24MY24.005</GID> </GPH> The regulatory text we are proposing appears at the end of this document. <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 section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866, as amended by Executive Order 14094 (Modernizing Regulatory Review). Accordingly, the NPRM has not been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This regulatory action determination is based on the ability of other waterway users to safely transit around the safety zone in many cases, and the size and duration of the safety zones will impact a small, designated area of the waterway for a relatively short period of time. Moreover, the Coast Guard will notify mariners of the enforcement via marine broadcasts, local notice to mariners, local news media, distribution in leaflet form, or by an on-scene oral notice. The rule will also allow vessels to seek permission to enter the zone if necessary. <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 agencies to consider the potential impact of regulations on small entities during rulemaking. 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. While some owners or operators of vessels intending to transit the safety zone may be small entities, for the reasons stated in section IV.A above, this proposed rule would not have a significant economic impact on any vessel owner or operator. 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 (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ) explaining why you think it qualifies and how and to what degree this rulemaking would economically affect it. Under section 213(a) of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 (Pub. L. 104-121), we want to assist small entities in understanding this proposed rule. If the prop ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━