Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>15 CFR Part 922</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 240829-0230]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0648-BL31</RIN> <SUBJECT>Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS), National Ocean Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NOAA is designating Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary (CHNMS) in the waters along and offshore of the coast of central California to recognize the national significance of the area's ecological, historical, archaeological, and cultural resources and to manage this special place as part of the National Marine Sanctuary System. The sanctuary boundary encompasses 4,543 square miles (mi <SU>2</SU> ) (3,431 square nautical miles (nmi <SU>2</SU> )) of submerged lands and marine waters from approximately two miles southeast of the marina at Diablo Canyon Power Plant in San Luis Obispo County to Naples along the Gaviota Coast in Santa Barbara County. NOAA is establishing the terms of designation for CHNMS and the regulations to implement the national marine sanctuary designation. NOAA has also published a final environmental impact statement (final EIS), final management plan, and Record of Decision. </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 October 16, 2024. During that same review period, the Governor of the State of California may certify to the Secretary of Commerce that the designation or any of its terms are unacceptable, in which case the designation or the unacceptable term will not take effect in State waters of the sanctuary. 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> . </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Copies of the final EIS and management plan described in this rule and the Record of Decision (ROD), and additional background materials are available at: <E T="03">https://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/chumash-heritage/</E> . <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Laura Ingulsrud, West Coast Regional Policy Analyst, 99 Pacific Street, Suite 100F, Monterey, CA 93940, 831-647-6450, <E T="03">laura.ingulsrud@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 ONMS. NOAA is designating CHNMS in the waters along and offshore of the coast of central California to recognize the national significance of the area's ecological, historical, archaeological, and cultural resources and to manage this special place as part of the National Marine Sanctuary System. The sanctuary boundary will encompass 4,543 mi <SU>2</SU> (3,431 nmi <SU>2</SU> ) of submerged lands and marine waters from approximately two miles southeast of the Diablo Canyon marina in San Luis Obispo County to Naples along the Gaviota Coast in Santa Barbara County. This boundary reflects NOAA's Final Preferred Alternative, which is described in the final environmental impact statement (final EIS) as Alternative 4 (Combined Smallest) and Sub-Alternative 5b (Gaviota Coast Extension), plus a small area (151 mi <SU>2</SU> , 114 nmi <SU>2</SU> ) in the center of the Santa Lucia Bank analyzed as part of the Initial Boundary Alternative, thereby creating a straight line across the northern section of the new sanctuary. NOAA has also included in the final management plan a framework to provide collaborative co-stewardship with the local Tribes and Indigenous communities  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> in this area for CHNMS. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  This rule uses “Tribes and Indigenous communities” and other related phrases to refer broadly to federally recognized Tribes, Native American Tribes that are not federally recognized, and other Indigenous groups and organizations. When appropriate to reference the federally recognized Tribe in this area, the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, the rule specifically names that Tribe. When appropriate to reference federally recognized Tribes more broadly, the EIS uses the terms “federally recognized Tribe(s)” or “federally recognized Tribal Nation(s).” As such, use of the term “Tribe” or “Tribal” is not intended to refer only to federally recognized Tribes unless otherwise specified. </FTNT> The specific area being designated as a national marine sanctuary includes the coastline of central California from approximately two miles southeast of Diablo Canyon marina, south along the San Luis Obispo County coast and a portion of Santa Barbara County to approximately two miles south of Dos Pueblos Creek near the township of Naples along the Gaviota Coast. Roughly 116 miles of the mainland coast (132 miles if including the shoreline of offshore rocks and islands) are part of the sanctuary designation. The sanctuary's boundaries also include the State waters off the Gaviota coast, the offshore marine waters from the western end of Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary (CINMS), and northwards, including about half of the Santa Lucia Bank, to approximately 55 miles west of the Santa Maria River mouth, and then east and then north to the point of origin at south of the Diablo Canyon marina. This area out to approximately 60 miles (51 nmi) from shore includes numerous offshore features such as the Santa Lucia Bank, portions of its escarpment, Rodriguez Seamount, Arguello Canyon, and other offshore features and resources. Coastal watersheds drain into this area via multiple outlets, including the Santa Maria and Santa Ynez river mouths and several other coastal streams and rivers. Strong coastal winds drive seasonal upwelling which fuels the area's high biological productivity, supporting dense aggregations of marine life. Specifically, winds offshore of Point Arguello/Point Conception initiate a powerful upwelling process that nourishes other nearby productive ecosystems, such as those located within CINMS. The presence of a biogeographic transition zone around Point Conception, where temperate waters from the north meet waters from the subtropics, creates an area of nationally-significant biodiversity in sea birds, marine mammals, invertebrates, and fishes. For more than 10,000 years, the productive and diverse ecosystems in the region have been essential to the way of life of Indigenous Peoples in the region, in particular the Chumash, one of the few ocean-going bands among the First Peoples of the Pacific Coast. Tribal connections to the region include traditional and ancestral homelands, customary uses of marine resources for food and cultural connections, and stewardship of resources and ecosystems within ancestral waters. Coastal landscapes and seascapes, including viewsheds, are integral and sacred elements of Native American cultural connections to the region. Additionally, during the last glacial maximum, the region's coastline extended beyond the present-day coast to include now-submerged areas that were likely inhabited by ancestors of California Tribes before the last sea level rise. As ocean-going Indigenous peoples on the California coast, the Chumash traveled to sea, to the Channel Islands, and along the coast in traditional redwood plank canoes called “tomols.” Coastal Chumash traditionally harvested an array of marine resources such as abalone and other shellfish, <E T="03">Olivella</E> shells, fish, kelp and other seaweeds, and marine mammals. Today, Chumash Peoples undertake ocean voyages in tomol canoes to honor their ancestors' crossings to the offshore islands and to continue to honor ceremonial sites within their historic areas. The marine environment of the sanctuary has provided and continues to provide a special sense of place to its changing coastal communities and visitors because of its historical, archaeological, cultural, aesthetic, and biological resources. The Indigenous peoples along this coast were the first people living in present-day California to have contact with Europeans when Spanish explorers arrived on the Pacific Coast in the mid-1500s. Subsequent waves of Spanish, Mexican, English, Russian, and American explorers and settlers traveled to this region over the next 300 years. The region was shaped by development of a mission system from San Diego to San Francisco, the California gold rush in the mid-1800s, ranching for cattle and the hide/tallow trade, military training and operations, a coastal and offshore oil boom, and, more recently, coastal and offshore renewable energy development. Maritime shipping has been prominent in this portion of California, with treacherous weather and currents leading to over 200 reported ship and aircraft wrecks; at least 20 prominent shipwrecks alone have been ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 348k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━