Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Amendment 126 to the Fishery Management Plans for Groundfish of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area and Amendment 114 to the Fishery Management Plan for Groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska To Expand Electronic Monitoring to the Pollock Fisheries

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>15 CFR Part 902</CFR> <CFR>50 CFR Part 679</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 240715-0195] </DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BM40</RIN> <SUBJECT>Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone Off Alaska; Amendment 126 to the Fishery Management Plans for Groundfish of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area and Amendment 114 to the Fishery Management Plan for Groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska To Expand Electronic Monitoring to the Pollock Fisheries</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS issues this final rule to implement amendment 126 to the Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Groundfish of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area (BSAI) and amendment 114 to the FMP for Groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska (GOA). Amendments 126/114 implement an electronic monitoring (EM) program for pelagic trawl pollock catcher vessels and tender vessels delivering to shoreside processors and stationary floating processors in the Bering Sea (BS), Aleutian Islands (AI), and GOA. This final rule is intended to promote the goals and objectives of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens Act), amendments 126/114, the BSAI FMP, the GOA FMP, and other applicable laws. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective August 28, 2024. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Electronic copies of amendment 126 to the BSAI FMP and amendment 114 to the GOA FMP (collectively, the FMPs) and the Environmental Assessment/Regulatory Impact Review prepared for this action (the analysis), and the Finding of No Significant Impact prepared for this action may be obtained from <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and the NMFS Alaska Region website at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/region/alaska.</E> Written comments regarding the burden-hour estimates or other aspects of the collection-of-information requirements contained in this final rule may be submitted to NMFS Alaska Region, P.O. Box 21668, Juneau, AK 99802-1668, Attn: Gretchen Harrington; and to <E T="03">www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain.</E> Find the particular information collection by using the search function. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Joel Kraski, 907-586-7228, <E T="03">joel.kraski@noaa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This final rule implements amendments 126/114 to the FMPs. NMFS published a Notice of Availability for amendments 126/114 in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on January 22, 2024 (89 FR 3902), with public comments invited through March 22, 2024. NMFS published a proposed rule to implement amendments 126/114 in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on February 5, 2024 (89 FR 7660), with public comments invited through April 5, 2024. The Secretary of Commerce approved amendments 126/114 on April 15, 2024, after considering information from the public and determining that amendments 126/114 are consistent with the BSAI and GOA FMPs, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, and other applicable laws. Per section 313 of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, NMFS conducted public hearings to accept oral and written comments on the proposed rule in-person for Alaska and virtually for Oregon and Washington. The first public hearing was held on February 28, 2024, in Kodiak, Alaska. The second virtual public hearing took place on March 12, 2024. NMFS received 17 comment letters on the proposed rule. NMFS considered 25 unique relevant written and oral comments received by the end of the applicable comment period and at a public hearing, whether specifically directed to the FMP amendments or the proposed rule. NMFS considered the 25 unique comments in reaching the approval decision for amendments 126/114. A summary of the comments and NMFS' responses are provided under the heading Comments and Responses section below. NMFS received one comment that was outside the scope of this action. <HD SOURCE="HD1">North Pacific Observer Program</HD> The Observer Program, part of the Fisheries Monitoring and Analysis Division of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, implements a suite of requirements for observation and reporting of fishing activities that plays an integral role in the management of North Pacific fisheries. The Observer Program was created with the implementation of the Magnuson-Stevens Act in the mid-1970s and has evolved from primarily observing foreign fleets to observing domestic fleets. The Observer Program provides the regulatory framework for NMFS-certified observers (observers) and EM systems to be deployed on board vessels to obtain information necessary for the conservation and management of the groundfish and halibut fisheries. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Integrating Electronic Monitoring Into the Observer Program</HD> The North Pacific Fishery Management Council (Council) and NMFS developed this final action based on input received from the Council's Trawl EM Committee, 3 years of data gathered through the exempted fishing permit (EFP) process, and public input through the Council process and the hearings and comment periods associated with this final rule. The rule provides an option for participants in the partial and full coverage observer categories using pelagic trawl gear to directed fish for pollock, as well as tender vessels delivering pollock to shoreside processors or stationary floating processors, to choose to be in a new category: the trawl EM category. This final rule makes EM an option for catcher vessels directed fishing for pollock with pelagic trawl gear in the BS, AI, or GOA fisheries (hereinafter “catcher vessels”) and associated tender vessels delivering pollock to shoreside processors or stationary floating processors in the BS, AI, and GOA. The preamble to the proposed rule to implement amendments 126/114 (89 FR 7660, February 5, 2024) contains a detailed description of the background for this action, which is not repeated here. Under this final rule, EM systems installed aboard the catcher vessels and tenders will collect at-sea data that NMFS will use to monitor vessels' compliance with Federal regulations and catch handling requirements. The implementation of EM has the potential to reduce economic and operational costs associated with deploying observers on catcher vessels. EM will improve salmon accounting for all associated species, reduce monitoring costs, and improve the quality of monitoring data. In consultation with the Council, NMFS has flexibility to provide observer coverage to respond to the scientific and management needs of the fisheries. By integrating EM on catcher vessels directed fishing for pollock with pelagic trawl gear, the Council and NMFS seek to preserve and increase this flexibility by implementing adaptable monitoring plans. With this final rule, NMFS, in consultation with the Council, is able to deploy EM tools tailored to the needs of different fishery sectors, just as it does with observers, through the Annual Deployment Plan (ADP). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Trawl EM Category</HD> This final rule establishes the process to allow owners or operators of catcher vessels and tender vessels in the pelagic pollock fisheries to choose to be in the trawl EM category and, therein, to use an EM system in place of an observer in most cases. Participation in the trawl EM category is voluntary, and a vessel owner or operator could choose on an annual basis to request a vessel's placement in the trawl EM category. This final rule also establishes the requirements for use of an EM system to monitor whether discards at sea occur. Furthermore, review of EM video footage will be used to verify vessel discard estimates submitted by those catcher vessels using pelagic trawl gear and tender vessels that choose to be in the trawl EM category. For vessels in the trawl EM category, the data collection previously conducted by at-sea observers will be completed by observers stationed at the processor receiving the catch. In the event NMFS identifies additional data that cannot be collected at the processor when this program is implemented, NMFS retains the authority to deploy at-sea observers on catcher vessels in the trawl EM category. Additionally, some level of in-person at-sea data collection in the pollock fisheries will continue to be necessary to collect certain spatial and biological data. NMFS will make these observer coverage decisions through the ADP process. In addition to observers stationed at shoreside processors and stationary floating processors, Catch Monitoring Control Plans (CMCPs) and Vessel Monitoring Plans (VMPs) will be used to determine and achieve the sampling objectives NMFS outlines in the ADP. The onboard EM systems will ensure that vessels meet compliance monitoring objectives while also establishing a chain of custody for prohibited species catch (PSC). Observers at shoreside processors or stationary floating processors will then collect species composition, PSC, and biological samples as determined by the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Fisheries Monitoring and Analysis Division. The flexibility offered by the ADP allows NMFS to achieve transparency, accountability, and efficiency from the Observer Program to meet its various objectives. The ADP process ensures that the best available information is used to evaluate deployment, including scientific review and Council input, to annually determine deployment methods. For all fishing trips in the trawl EM category, all vessels will be required to improve retention ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> minimize discards to the greatest extent practicable) and record all catch handling. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 160k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━