Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Cuyahoga River, Cleveland, OH

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 117</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. USCG-2023-0188]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA09</RIN> <SUBJECT>Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Cuyahoga River, Cleveland, OH</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard is creating a new operating schedule to govern all movable bridges over the Cuyahoga River. The Coast Guard is also establishing new rules that will assist mariners signal for and anticipate bridge openings. These changes are expected to ensure the safe and efficient flow of traffic on the Cuyahoga River. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective June 27, 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-2023-0188) 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 final rule, call or email Mr. Lee D. Soule, Bridge Management Specialist, Ninth Coast Guard District; telephone 216-902-6085, email <E T="03">Lee.D.Soule@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">CRSTF Cuyahoga River Safety Task Force</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DHS Department of Homeland Security</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FR Federal Register</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">GBCA Greater Cleveland Boating Association</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">IGLD85 International Great Lakes Datum of 1985</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">LWD Low Water Datum based on IGLD85</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">OMB Office of Management and Budget</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">PAWSA Ports And Waterway Safety Assessment</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 Information and Regulatory History</HD> On May 22, 2023, the Coast Guard published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), with a request for comments, entitled “Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Cuyahoga River, Cleveland, OH” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (88 FR 32709), to seek your comments on whether the Coast Guard should consider modifying the current operating schedule. During the comment period that ended July 21, 2023, we received five comments. Those comments are addressed in Section IV of this final rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Legal Authority and Need for Rule</HD> The Coast Guard is issuing this rule under authority 33 U.S.C. 499. The Coast Guard is establishing new rules that will help mariners signal for and anticipate bridge openings. The Cuyahoga River is considered one of the major industrial centers in the Great Lakes and handles several commodities for domestic and international commerce, including steel, heavy machinery, dry and liquid bulk products, and salt. Heavy recreational traffic is concentrated in the Old River and on the Cuyahoga River up to mile 2.42 during the summer. This mix of large commercial vessels and recreational vessels are a concern to the Coast Guard and mariners alike. Mariners have raised concerns to the Ninth Coast Guard District regarding the safety and consistency of moveable bridge operations on the Cuyahoga River, specifically the Norfolk Southern Railroad Bridge, at Mile 0.76. The Norfolk Southern Railroad Bridge, at Mile 0.76, is locally known as NS1. Mariners have complained for years that it is too slow to lift for cruise ships, freighters, and recreational boats transiting between the river and Lake Erie. The Coast Guard receives approximately two hundred written formal and informal reports of unreasonable bridge delays across the Great Lakes region each year; the vast majority concern the Norfolk Southern Railroad Bridge, mile 0.76. Businesses in the Cleveland Flats neighborhood, a neighborhood adjacent to the Norfolk Southern Railroad Bridge, mile 0.76, have expressed that problems at the bridge are getting worse. The increase is problems appear to stem from increased recreational river traffic and as a result of Norfolk Southern's decision to move the bridge's dispatch center to Atlanta, Georgia. Local drawtenders maintain that their only duty is to open the bridge when the dispatcher in Atlanta, Georgia orders them to do so. Emergency responders are also cautious when operating near Norfolk Southern Railroad Bridge, at Mile 0 76. Norfolk Local police and the Coast Guard patrol boats have expressed concern that their boats could be trapped behind the bridge, thus delaying emergency response to events on the other side. Modern bridge regulations are needed to allow vessel operators the opportunity to pass through the Cuyahoga River without loitering at the bridges and causing a hazardous condition. These regulatory additions were proposed in response to those concerns. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of Comments, Changes, and the Final Rule</HD> The conditions of the NPRM were supported by the comments received from the Canadian Chamber of Marine Commerce. The GBCA concurred with the requirements proposed in the NPRM, including a clock countdown to notify mariners of the next opening of the Norfolk Southern Railroad Bridge at Mile 0.76. The GBCA expressed its dissatisfaction with operations at Norfolk Southern Railroad Bridge at Mile 0.76. The GBCA noted that recreational vessels are often forced to wait for a commercial vessel opening, as the bridge operators are non-responsive to recreational traffic opening requests. The American Waterways Operators is the tugboat, towboat, and barge industry's advocate. They commented against requiring a countdown clock and would prefer mandated scheduled openings for non-commercial vessels to pass through the bridge. The Coast Guard weighed this option, but elected to move forward with a countdown clock, as the clock best met the needs of recreational boating community as it related to transparency and improved communications. Norfolk Southern Corporation commented that the Coast Guard did not seek appropriate comment from Norfolk Southern prior to the release of the NPRM. However, the Coast Guard has invited Norfolk Southern to area and regional meetings, including monthly virtual meetings, and the public meeting where the contemplated NPRM was discussed in open forum. Norfolk Southern commented that they believe the use of a countdown clock would cause an unsafe condition at the bridge because some vessels may race to the bridge to take advantage of the pending opening. To the extent that people may rush toward a bridge opening, this is already happening: Large numbers of recreational boaters that have been waiting at the bridge, often for over an hour and at times in poor weather conditions, crowd the area and rush behind the commercial traffic so they can return to their home docks. This problem is caused primarily by Norfolk Southern Railroad Bridge's failure to respond to requests for an opening. The Coast Guard believes that the communication enhancements contained in this final rule, to include a countdown clock, will overall improve safety by increasing Norfolk Southern's transparency, communications and responsiveness as it relates to the boating community. Norfolk Southern has argued that rail dispatchers have no idea where their trains are or how fast their trains are traveling, and thus Norfolk Southern is unable to determine when a train will arrive at the bridge, which would render a countdown clock to openings meaningless. This comment is not consistent with the Coast Guard's experience as to how railroad operators function. Most public complaints concern communications between mariners and the drawtenders, specifically the perceived lack of responsiveness by the drawtenders when mariners request an opening or when they request an update for time of the next opening. While the precise cause of each individual public complaint is unclear, poor communications between the Cleveland drawtender and the dispatcher in Atlanta may also contribute to the problem. This regulation, including a countdown clock, required posting of a phone number, mandatory use of a VHF-FM Marine Radio by the drawtender, and mandatory signage, are all efforts to improve safety and communications between the drawtender and mariners. The Coast Guard made a typographical error in the NPRM that would require the new signage to indicate to the public that the bridge is remotely operated language. However, the bridge is not currently remotely operated, and the Coast Guard does not intend to require a statement that the bridge is remotely operated. <HD SOURCE="HD1">V. Regulatory Analyses</HD> We developed this 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. <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 rule has not been designated a “significant regulatory action,” under section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866, <E T="03">as amended by Executive Order 14094 (Modernizing Regulatory Review).</E> Accordingly, it has not been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This regulatory action determination is based on the ability that vessels can still transit the bridge given ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 17k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━