Establish Anchorage Ground; Rice Island Anchorage, Columbia River, Oregon and Washington

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 110</CFR> <DEPDOC>[USCG-2023-0485]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA01</RIN> <SUBJECT>Establish Anchorage Ground; Rice Island 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 Rice Island, Oregon on the Lower Columbia River. The purpose of this rule is to improve navigation safety by establishing an area to provide for the safe anchoring of commercial vessels in the navigable waters of the Lower Columbia River. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective January 15, 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-2023-0485 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-2">CFR Code of Federal Regulations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">DHS Department of Homeland Security</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">FR Federal Register</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">NPRM Notice of proposed rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">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 around that area. 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; Rice Island Anchorage, Columbia River, Oregon and Washington” (88 FR 89646). 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 on June 7, 2024 (89 FR 38854), in which we received an additional 3 comments. In total, we had 90 days of comment period and received 42 total comments. <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 its 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. One comment asked the Coast Guard to consider three 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. And third, the boundary coordinates for the proposed anchorage ground are stated as latitude and longitude without a statement of the associated horizontal datum. Another comment made by a self-identified member of a non-federally recognized tribe, asked the Coast Guard to consider all potential impacts to the Green Sturgeon, a threatened species of fish present in the lower Columbia River Estuary. The other comments wrote in support of the proposed anchorage ground and are not discussed here. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Anchorage Ground Depth</HD> The commenter noted there is variation in the depth of the anchorage ground and that some vessels with deep drafts would need to be cognizant of areas within the anchorage shallower than 43 feet. The commenter also asked if there are plans to dredge the shallower areas to a standard depth of 43 feet. The Coast Guard believes the range of depths within the anchorage ground will accommodate a variety of vessel types and configurations. If it is later determined that dredging is required, then 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. Charted Sandwaves</HD> The commenter indicated that a sandwave shoal formation intersects the anchorage ground. Sandwave shoal formations are common throughout the Lower Columbia River to include the area of the anchorage ground. Presence of sandwave shoal formations have not historically precluded this area from being used as an anchorage ground. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Horizontal Datum</HD> The commenter asked us to explicitly state the horizontal datum for the anchorage ground. The NPRM included the boundary coordinates for the anchorage ground as latitude and longitude without a statement of the associated horizontal datum. In response to this comment, we revised the associated horizontal datum in the regulatory text at the end of this rulemaking. All other regulatory text remains unchanged. <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. Green Sturgeon</HD> One commenter asked the Coast Guard to consider all potential impacts to the Green Sturgeon, a threatened species of fish present in the lower Columbia River Estuary. While the anchorage ground is located within the Green Sturgeon's critical habitat, this rule will have no effect on the Green Sturgeon or the critical habitat. This rule will not disturb the Green Sturgeon's ability to spawn or forage for food. Moreover, this rule will not create an increase in vessel traffic through its habitat or impede its migratory pathway through the Columbia River. <HD SOURCE="HD2">E. Final Rule</HD> This rule establishes a Federal anchorage ground in the vicinity of Rice Island, 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 1.745 square miles of anchorage grounds are designated to provide necessary commercial deep draft anchorages and enhance the safety of navigation to commercial vessels transiting to, from, and within the Columbia River. The expected impact to navigation created by the establishment of this anchorage ground is expected to be minimal because the anchorages 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 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 16k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━