Establish Anchorage Ground; Port Westward Anchorage, Columbia River, Oregon and Washington

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 110</CFR> <DEPDOC>[USCG-2023-0749]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA01</RIN> <SUBJECT>Establish Anchorage Ground; Port Westward Anchorage, Columbia River, Oregon and Washington</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 establishing an anchorage ground near Port Westward, Oregon on the Columbia River. The purpose of this rule is to improve safety of navigation by providing additional safe anchorages for commercial vessels in the navigable waters of the Columbia River. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective January 3, 2025. </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 USCG-2023-0749 in the search box and click “Search.” Next, in the Document Type column, select “Supporting & Related Material.” <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> If you have questions about this rule, call or email Lieutenant Commander Jesse Wallace, Waterways Management Division, Sector Columbia River, U.S. Coast Guard; telephone 503-240-9319, email <E T="03">SCRWWM@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">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">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background Information and Regulatory History</HD> In the last several years, the Columbia River Marine Transportation System has seen an increase in commercial traffic and vessel size near the Lower Columbia River, thus creating a concern for anchorage capacity within the river system. The Columbia River Steamship Operators Association and the Columbia River Pilots formally requested the Coast Guard review and evaluate the establishment of this new anchorage ground to address the safety and navigation concerns with the expanding vessel traffic in the Lower Columbia River. In response, on December 28, 2023, the Coast Guard published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) titled “Establish Anchorage Ground; Port Westward Anchorage, Columbia River, Oregon and Washington” (88 FR 89644). There we stated why we issued the NPRM and invited comments on our proposed regulatory action to establish this anchorage ground. During the comment period that ended February 26, 2024, we received 39 comments. The Coast Guard opened another 30-day comment period that ended June 7, 2024 (89 FR 38853), in which we received an additional 3 comments. In total, we had 90 days of comment period and received 42 total comments, including some duplicate submissions. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Legal Authority and Need for Rule</HD> Under Title 33 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 109.05, the Commandant of the Coast Guard has delegated the authority to establish anchorage grounds to Coast Guard District Commanders. The Coast Guard establishes anchorage grounds under Section 7 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of March 4, 1915, as amended (38 Stat. 1053; 46 U.S.C. 70006) and places these regulations in Title 33 CFR part 110, subpart B. The purpose of this rule is to establish a Federal anchorage ground in the Lower Columbia River to improve safety of navigation by creating additional anchorage grounds for the increased vessel traffic transiting through the Lower Columbia River. The Coast Guard is issuing this rule under authority in 46 U.S.C. 70034. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of Comments, Changes, and the Rule</HD> As noted above, we received 42 total comments on our NPRM during the 2 comment periods. A few of the comments were duplicates. All comments received fully support this rule. We received significant input regarding how important it is to establish this anchorage, with many describing the environmental, safety, and economic benefits of this proposed anchorage, particularly in light of the increase in ship size in the channel since the 1970's. One comment suggested adding a stern anchor buoy to the anchorage. The United States Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for the establishment of stern anchor buoys, interested parties may request the addition of a buoy after the completion of this regulatory process. Another comment asked the Coast Guard to consider two observations regarding the establishment of the proposed anchorage ground. First, the anchorage ground depth. Second, a charted sandwave area that intersects the proposed anchorage ground. Below is the Coast Guard's response to these observances. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Anchorage Ground Depth</HD> The range of depths within the anchorage ground will accommodate a variety of vessel types and configurations. 33 U.S.C. 365 authorizes the United States Army Corps of Engineers to dredge within, and adjacent to, Federal anchorages established by the Coast Guard. Environmental reviews and approvals are required prior to dredging in the anchorage. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Horizontal Datum</HD> The NPRM included the boundary coordinates for the anchorage ground as latitude and longitude without a statement of the associated horizontal datum. The associated horizontal datum has been implemented into the regulatory text at the end of this rulemaking. All other regulatory text remaining unchanged. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Final Rule</HD> This rule establishes a Federal anchorage ground in the vicinity of Port Westward, in the Lower Columbia River. The specific coordinates for this anchorage ground are included in the regulatory text at the end of this document. <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, as amended by Executive Order 14094 (Modernizing Regulatory Review). Accordingly, this rule has not been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This regulatory action determination is based on the location and size of the anchorage ground, as well as the vessel traffic and anchoring data provided by the Coast Guard Navigation Center. The regulation will ensure approximately 0.336 square miles of anchorage grounds are designated to provide necessary commercial deep draft anchorages and enhance the navigational safety of commercial vessels transiting to, from, and within the Columbia River. The impact on routine navigation is expected to be minimal because the anchorage ground is located outside the federal channel and is consistent with current anchorage habits. When not occupied, vessels will be able to maneuver in, around, and through the anchorages. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Impact on Small Entities</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, 5 U.S.C. 601-612, as amended, requires Federal agencies to consider the potential impact of regulations on small entities during rulemaking. The term “small entities” comprises small businesses, not-for-profit organizations that are independently owned and operated and are not dominant in their fields, and governmental jurisdictions with populations of less than 50,000. The Coast Guard received no comments from the Small Business Administration on this rulemaking. The Coast Guard certifies under 5 U.S.C. 605(b) that this rule will not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. While some owners or operators of vessels intending to use the anchorage ground may be small entities, for reasons stated in section V.A above, this rule would not have a significant economic impact on any vessel owner or operator. Under section 213(a) of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 (Pub. L. 104-121), we want to assist small entities in understanding this rule. If the rule would affect your small business, organization, or governmental jurisdiction and you have questions concerning its provisions or options for compliance, please call or email the person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. Small businesses may send comments on the actions of Federal employees who enforce, or otherwise determine compliance with, Federal regulations to the Small Business and Agriculture Regulatory Enforcement Ombudsman and the Regional Small Business Regulatory Fairness Boards. The Ombudsman evaluates these actions annually and rates each agency's responsiveness to small business. If you wish to comment on actions by employees of the Coast Guard, call 1-888-REG-FAIR (1-888-734-3247). The Coast Guard will not retaliate against small entities that question or complain about this rule or any policy or action of the Coast Guard. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Collection of Information</HD> This rule will not call for a new collection of information under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501-3520). <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. Federalism and Indian Tribal Governments</HD> A rule has implications for federalism under Executive Order 13132, Federalism, if it has a substantial direct effect on the States, on the relationship between the National Government ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 14k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━