Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, Osprey, FL

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 117</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. USCG-2024-0628]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA09</RIN> <SUBJECT>Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, Osprey, FL</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard proposes to change the operating schedule that governs the Blackburn Point Bridge across the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GICW), mile 63.1, at Osprey, FL. The Casey Key Association has requested the Coast Guard consider changing the operating schedule to reduce drawbridge openings during the weekday peak traffic periods to assist with alleviating roadway congestion. We invite your comments on this proposed rulemaking. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and related material must reach the Coast Guard on or before February 7, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2024-0628 using 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 below for instructions on submitting comments. This notice of proposed rulemaking with its plain-language, 100-word-or-less proposed rule summary will be available in this same docket. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> If you have questions on this proposed rule, call or email Ms. Jennifer Zercher, Bridge Management Specialist, Seventh Coast Guard District; telephone 571-607-5951, email <E T="03">Jennifer.N.Zercher@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">OMB Office of Management and Budget</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NPRM Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Advance, Supplemental)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">TD Temporary Deviation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FL Florida</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">GICW Gulf Intracoastal Waterway</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background, Purpose and Legal Basis</HD> Blackburn Point Bridge across the GICW, mile 63.1, at Osprey, FL, is a swing bridge with a 9-foot vertical clearance above mean high water when in the closed position. The existing regulation requires the bridge to open on demand any time a vessel requests an opening. The current regulation can be found in 33 CFR 117.5. On August 6, 2024, the Coast Guard published a temporary deviation entitled “Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, Osprey, FL” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (89 FR 63815). That temporary deviation, effective from 7 a.m. on August 12, 2024, through 7 p.m. on January 31, 2025, allows Blackburn Point Bridge to operate with restricted, scheduled openings at peak traffic times during weekdays and operate on demand at all other times. This temporary deviation was authorized to test the impact of restricted opening on vessels and roadway traffic. The comment period for this temporary deviation ended September 20, 2024, with three comments received. The three comments received voiced concerns related to the proposed change. The first commentor stated that when the swing bridge was placed on a modified schedule last year to conduct emergency repairs, it caused unsafe conditions for vessels due to the number of waterway users and the restrictive nature of the waterway at the swing bridge. The modified schedule which the commentor was referring, was different than the currently proposed schedule. The previous modifications placed the swing bridge on a twice an hour opening schedule every day of the week, including the weekend. This proposed rule would allow mariners to request an opening three times an hour at designated times Monday through Friday during peak rush hours and would operate on demand all other times. The Coast Guard feels this purposed rule would allow for safe navigation while assisting with alleviating roadway congestion. The commentor also stated that roadway congestion is due to the bridge being a single-lane roadway passage which causes a pinch-point, and suggested the county consider widening or replacing the bridge. Sarasota County is considering replacing the swing bridge, but changes to the physical structure of the bridge are outside the scope of this rulemaking. The second commentor stated the proposed opening schedule provides no real relief to roadway traffic because it takes about ten minutes for the bridge to cycle. The Coast Guard has reviewed bridge logs. When one or two vessels are passing, the average opening time is five to seven minutes. When three or more vessels pass the average opening times is eight to twelve minutes. The Coast Guard has not received information supporting the statement the proposed schedule would not provide relief to roadway traffic. To the contrary, the county stated the proposed schedule is assisting with alleviating roadway congestion. The last commentor stated the swing bridge should remain required to open on demand because tidal movement and shallow water makes it dangerous to hold station while waiting on an opening. Again, this proposed rule would allow mariners to request an opening three times an hour at designated times Monday through Friday during peak rush hours and would operate on demand all other times. The Coast Guard feels this allows for safe navigation while assisting with alleviating roadway congestion. This NPRM will be open for public comment simultaneously with a Test Deviation under the same name and docket number. Both documents can be found at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and comments can be made to either document. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Proposed Rule</HD> The current operating schedule allows the Blackburn Point Bridge to open on demand for marine traffic. Under this proposed rule, the swing bridge will open at the top of the hour, 20 minutes past the hour and 40 minutes past the hour, Monday through Friday between the hours of 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. At all other times the swing bridge will open on demand. This will assist with alleviating roadway congestion during the weekday and allow for on demand openings in the evenings and weekends. Vessels that can pass beneath the bridge without an opening may do so at any time. Emergency vessels and tugs with tows can still request an opening at any time. This proposed rule would add one new special requirement to section 117.287 for the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, the Blackburn Point Bridge at Osprey, FL. Additionally, this proposed rule will republish section 117.287 to reorganize the paragraph structure to follow current regulatory drafting requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Regulatory Analyses</HD> We developed this proposed rule after considering numerous statutes and Executive Orders related to rulemaking. Below we summarize our analyses based on 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 proposed 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, the NPRM has not been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This regulatory action determination is based on the ability that vessels can still transit the bridge during the designated times and vessels able to pass without an opening may do so at any time. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Impact on Small Entities</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980 (RFA), 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 certifies under 5 U.S.C. 605(b) that this proposed rule would not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. While some owners or operators of vessels intending to transit the bridge may be small entities, for the reasons stated in section IV.A above this proposed rule would not have a significant economic impact on any vessel owner or operator <E T="03">.</E> If you think that your business, organization, or governmental jurisdiction qualifies as a small entity and that this rule would have a significant economic impact on it, please submit a comment (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ) explaining why you think it qualifies and how and to what degree this rule would economically affect it. 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 proposed rule. If the proposed rule would affect your small business, organization, or governmental jurisdiction and you have questions concerning its provisions or options for compliance, please contact the person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. The Coast Guard will not retaliate against small entities that question or complain about this proposed rule or any policy or ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━