Regulated Navigation Area; Cuyahoga River, Cleveland, OH

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 165</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2024-0393]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA11</RIN> <SUBJECT>Regulated Navigation Area; Cuyahoga River, Cleveland, OH</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Interim rule and request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard is issuing an Interim Final Rule establishing a Regulated Navigation Area (RNA) for certain waters of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio. This action is necessary to provide for the safety of life on these navigable waters near the “Irishtown Bend” in Cleveland, Ohio, during a bank stabilization construction project from December 2, 2024, with an anticipated completion date of all waterside work on July 11, 2025. This rulemaking would limit vessel speeds near the area and prohibit vessels from being inside the RNA during construction hours unless authorized by the Captain of the Port Sector Eastern Great Lakes or a designated representative. We invite your comments on this rulemaking. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This interim rule is effective on December 2, 2024. Comments and related material must be received by the Coast Guard December 26, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2024-0393 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. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For information about this document, call or email MST1 Cody Mayrer at Marine Safety Unit Cleveland's Waterways Management Division, U.S. Coast Guard; telephone 216-937-0111, email <E T="03">D09-SMB-MSUCLEVELAND-WWM@uscg.mil.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents for Preamble </HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Abbreviations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Basis and Purpose, and Regulatory History</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Discussion of Comments and Changes</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Discussion of the Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Regulatory Analyses</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Regulatory Planning and Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Small Entities</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Assistance for Small Entities</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Collection of Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Federalism</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Unfunded Mandates</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Taking of Private Property</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Civil Justice Reform</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. Protection of Children</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. Indian Tribal Governments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">K. Energy Effects</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">L. Technical Standards</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">M. Environment</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Public Participation and Request for Comments</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Abbreviations</HD> <EXTRACT> <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">OMB Office of Management and Budget</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">RNA Regulated Navigation Area</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Basis and Purpose, and Regulatory History</HD> On December 17, 2023, Goettle Construction company notified the Coast Guard that they will be conducting waterside construction associated with a bank stabilization project on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio from August 15, 2024, through November 30, 2025. Construction is intended to shore-up and replace approximately 2,400 linear feet of corrugated steel bulkhead located on the western (left descending) bank of the Cuyahoga River between the Detroit-Superior Bridge and the Columbus Road Bridge. The Captain of the Port Sector Eastern Great Lakes (COTP) has determined that potential hazards associated with the equipment used to complete this project would be a safety concern for any craft intending to navigate near the project area during construction hours. Furthermore, additional safety measures are necessary to keep workers on the construction barges safe while completing the construction project. There will be impacts to the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland during this stabilization project. However, this work is necessary because if the bank of the river is allowed to slide into the river, then it could potentially close the river for an estimated 12-18 months for all vessel traffic. The Coast Guard published a notice of proposed rulemaking on May 21, 2024, with a 30-day comment period, 89 FR 44622. During this period, 10 comments were received. After a review of all comments, several meetings were held with project stakeholders to discuss concerns over impacts to commercial vessel traffic in the affected area of the navigable waterway. The result of the analysis of the comments and collaboration with stakeholders was to maintain the original engineering scope of the project, however, with modified project dates and timing to accommodate stakeholder concerns related to vessel and facility scheduling. The Coast Guard is satisfied with these modifications to the project schedule. Due to the significant nature of this project, and in the interest of continued collaboration with stakeholders, this rulemaking provides for an additional 30-day comment period. Also, under 5 U.S.C. 553(d)(3), the Coast Guard finds that good cause exists for making this rule effective less than 30 days after publication in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . Delaying the effective date of this rule would be impracticable because of the need to protect the public from hazards associated with the project. The Coast Guard is proposing this rulemaking under authority in 46 U.S.C. 70011 and 70034. The authority to promulgate regulations under this section is delegated to the Commandant of the Coast Guard under Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Delegation No. 00170.1(II)(70), Revision No. 01.4. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Comments</HD> During the NPRM comment period, 10 comments were received from industry representatives potentially affected by the construction plan. Their shared, consistent concern was the restriction of commercial vessel traffic during the daily construction periods resulting in impacts to the transportation of various commodities to and from waterfront processing facilities. These comments have been addressed directly with the stakeholders during several in-person meetings. As a result of these comments and meetings, we adjusted the dates and times for the RNA in this document. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of the Rule</HD> This rule establishes a RNA starting on December 2, 2024, with an anticipated completion date of July 11, 2025. The RNA would cover all navigable waters within 10 feet of construction barges in the Cuyahoga River located on the western bank (left descending bank) of the Cuyahoga River between the Detroit-Superior Bridge and the Columbus Road Bridge in Cleveland, Ohio. The duration of the Regulated Navigation Area is intended to ensure the safety of vessels and these navigable waters during the following scheduled hours of the construction project: <FP SOURCE="FP-2">• December 2, 2024, through January 31, 2025</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">○ 7 a.m. each Tuesday through 7 a.m. each Thursday</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">• February 3, 2025, through February 28, 2025</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">○ No transit restrictions required due to lack of anticipated vessel traffic</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">• March 3, 2025, through March 28, 2025</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">○ 8 a.m. though 4 p.m. each Monday through Friday</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">• March 31, 2025, through July 11, 2025</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">○ 7 a.m. each Tuesday through 7 a.m. each Thursday</FP> No vessel or craft would be permitted to be operated within 10 feet of the construction barges without obtaining permission from the COTP or a designated representative. The regulatory text we are proposing appears at the end of this document. The economic impact of this rule is reduced to reasonable minimums as a result of consideration of comments and collaboration with affected stakeholders. <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 these statutes or Executive orders. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Regulatory Planning and Review</HD> Executive Orders 12866 (Regulatory Planning and Review) and 13563 (Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review) 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 (including potential economic, environmental, public health and safety effects, distributive impacts, and equity). Executive Order 13563 emphasizes the importance of quantifying both costs and benefits, of reducing costs, of harmonizing rules, and of promoting flexibility. Two additional Executive orders were recently published to promote the goals of Executive Order 13563: Executive Order 13609 (Promoting International Regulatory Cooperation) and Executive Order 13610 (Identifying and Reducing Regulatory Burdens). Executive Order 13609 targets international regulatory cooperation to reduce, eliminate, or prevent unnecessary differences in regulatory requirements. Executive Order 13610 aims to modernize the regulatory systems and to reduce unjustified regulatory burdens and costs on th ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 27k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━