Lake Ontario National Marine Sanctuary; Final Regulations

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>15 CFR Part 922</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 240329-0091]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BJ62</RIN> <SUBJECT>Lake Ontario National Marine Sanctuary; Final Regulations</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS), National Ocean Service (NOS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Commerce (DOC). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NOAA is issuing final regulations for the designation of the Lake Ontario National Marine Sanctuary (LONMS) in eastern Lake Ontario to recognize the national significance of the area's historical, archaeological, and cultural resources and to manage this special place as part of the National Marine Sanctuary System. The area encompasses 1,300 nmi <SU>2</SU> (1,722 mi <SU>2</SU> ) of eastern Lake Ontario waters and borders Wayne, Cayuga, Oswego, and Jefferson counties. NOAA will co-manage LONMS with New York State. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Effective Date:</E> Pursuant to section 304(b) of the National Marine Sanctuaries Act (NMSA) (16 U.S.C. 1434(b)), the designation and regulations shall take effect and become final after the close of a review period of forty-five days of continuous session of Congress, beginning on the date on which this Federal rulemaking is published, which is June 6, 2024, unless the Governor of the State of New York certifies to the Secretary of Commerce during that same review period that the designation or any of its terms is unacceptable, in which case the designation or any unacceptable term shall not take effect. The public can track days of Congressional session at the following website: <E T="03">https://www.congress.gov/days-in-session.</E> NOAA will publish an announcement of the effective date of the final regulations in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . NOAA is staying the effective date of § 922.223(a)(3), until July 21, 2026. All other regulatory provisions will become effective on the effective date of this final rule. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Copies of the final environmental impact statement (FEIS) and management plan described in this rule and the record of decision (ROD) are available at <E T="03">https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/lake-ontario/.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Ellen Brody, 734-741- 2270, <E T="03">ellen.brody@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Background</HD> The National Marine Sanctuaries Act (NMSA; 16 U.S.C. 1431 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) authorizes the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) to designate and protect as national marine sanctuaries areas of the marine environment that are of special national significance due to their conservation, recreational, ecological, historical, scientific, cultural, archaeological, educational, or esthetic qualities. Day-to-day management of national marine sanctuaries has been delegated by the Secretary to NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS). The primary objective of the NMSA is to protect the resources of the National Marine Sanctuary System. NOAA is designating the Lake Ontario National Marine Sanctuary (LONMS) in eastern Lake Ontario to recognize the national significance of the area's historical, archaeological, and cultural resources and to manage this special place as part of the National Marine Sanctuary System. To designate a national marine sanctuary, NOAA will set a boundary to delineate the borders of the sanctuary; run the site as a part of the National Marine Sanctuary System under the National Marine Sanctuaries Act; establish site-specific regulations to protect underwater cultural and historical resources; and implement a management plan that provides a comprehensive, long-term plan to manage the sanctuary and interpret the significance of the resources and surrounding area to the public. The sanctuary boundary encompasses 1,300 nmi <SU>2</SU> (1,722 mi <SU>2</SU> ) of eastern Lake Ontario waters and borders Wayne, Cayuga, Oswego, and Jefferson counties. NOAA will co-manage LONMS with New York State. Eastern Lake Ontario is one of the most historically significant regions in the Great Lakes and the country. Approximately 1,000 years ago, the distinct cultural groups living along the lake shoreline had unified as the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Portions of the original homelands of the Onondaga Nation, Cayuga Nation, Seneca Nation, and Oneida Nation lie within the boundaries of the sanctuary. This region has been critical to maritime trade for centuries, and it also represents a diverse array of important events in our Nation's history from military conflicts, maritime innovation, and American expansion to the west. During the colonial period, Lake Ontario was a strategic theater of conflict among European powers and the young American republic. Military actions occurred in the region during the French and Indian War, Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812. Later, this region was critical to the development of the American West and the Nation's industrial core. One of the more tangible and identifiable assets of this history were the vessels that plied Lake Ontario's waters. Carrying goods, people, and the community histories of the Great Lakes region, some of these vessels encountered treacherous conditions and sank. The cold, fresh water of the Great Lakes has preserved a number of these shipwrecks along with their historical and cultural context, making them a cornerstone for the protection, study, and interpretation offered by national marine sanctuaries. LONMS contains 41 known shipwrecks and one known submerged aircraft, including one shipwreck ( <E T="03">St. Peter</E> ) listed on the National Register of Historic Places and another listed as a New York State Submerged Cultural Preserve and Dive Site ( <E T="03">David Mills).</E> This area may also include approximately 19 additional potential shipwreck sites (shipwrecks which may exist, but additional research is needed to verify and describe them); three aircraft; and several other underwater archaeological sites, such as remnants of piers, aids to navigation, historic middens, and historic properties that may be of religious and cultural significance to Indigenous Nations and Tribes. At this time, NOAA is unaware of any foreign sovereign shipwrecks located within the sanctuary boundary. The exceptional archaeological, historical, and recreational value of these assets spans centuries, as demonstrated by the commercial schooner <E T="03">Washington</E> that was built in 1797, and U.S. Coast Guard Cable Boat 56022, which was lost under tow in 1977. The sanctuary will also include early American commercial vessels, submerged battlefields from the Seven Years War and War of 1812 (at Oswego and Sackets Harbor, respectively), and stellar examples of innovative technologies in shipbuilding from the last two centuries. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Need for Action</HD> The National Marine Sanctuaries Act (NMSA; 16 U.S.C. 1431 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) authorizes the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) to designate new national marine sanctuaries to meet the purposes and policies of the NMSA, including: • “to identify and designate as national marine sanctuaries areas of the marine environment which are of special national significance and to manage these areas as the National Marine Sanctuary System” (16 U.S.C. 1431(b)(1)); • “to provide authority for comprehensive and coordinated conservation and management of these marine areas, and activities affecting them, in a manner which complements existing regulatory authorities” (16 U.S.C. 1431(b)(2)); and • “to facilitate to the extent compatible with the primary objective of resource protection, all public and private uses of the resources of these marine areas not prohibited pursuant to other authorities” (16 U.S.C. 1431(b)(6)). The nationally significant underwater cultural and historical resources within the sanctuary require long-term protection and management to reduce threats that adversely affect their historical, cultural, archaeological, recreational, and educational value. For example, many of the shipwrecks in the sanctuary, which have a high level of structural integrity as a result of the preservative properties of the cold, fresh water of Lake Ontario and the great depth at which several of them lie, are threatened by both natural processes and human activities. These threats include wind, waves, currents, storms, and ice; invasive species such as zebra and quagga mussels, which currently cover many shipwrecks; anchors and grappling hooks from dive boats; poorly attached mooring lines; artifact removal; artifacts being moved within a shipwreck site; and entanglement from remotely operated vehicle tethers and fishing gear. Accordingly, NOAA is designating this area as a national marine sanctuary to: (1) manage and protect nationally significant underwater cultural and historical resources through a regulatory and nonregulatory framework; (2) document, further locate, and monitor these resources; (3) provide interpretation of their cultural, historical, and educational value to the public; and (4) promote public stewardship and responsible use of these resources for their recreational value. Establishing a national marine sanctuary in eastern Lake Ontario will: (a) allow NOAA to complement and supplement existing State and Federal efforts to protect underwater cultural and historical resources and actively manage, study, and interpret them for the public; (b) through outreach and communication, recognize and promote this area's nationally s ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 146k characters. 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