Taking and Importing Marine Mammals; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to Geophysical Surveys Related to Oil and Gas Activities in the Gulf of Mexico

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[RTID 0648-XE545]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Taking and Importing Marine Mammals; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to Geophysical Surveys Related to Oil and Gas Activities in the Gulf of Mexico</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of issuance of letter of authorization. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In accordance with the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), as amended, its implementing regulations, and NMFS' MMPA Regulations for Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to Geophysical Surveys Related to Oil and Gas Activities in the Gulf of Mexico, notification is hereby given that NMFS has issued a Letter of Authorization (LOA) to LLOG Exploration Offshore, L.L.C. (LLOG) for the take of marine mammals incidental to geophysical survey activity in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The LOA is effective from December 31, 2024 through April 19, 2026. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> The LOA, LOA request, and supporting documentation are available online at: <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/action/incidental-take-authorization-oil-and-gas-industry-geophysical-survey-activity-gulf-mexico.</E> In case of problems accessing these documents, please call the contact listed below (see <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section). <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jenna Harlacher, Office of Protected Resources, NMFS, (301) 427-8401. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> Sections 101(a)(5)(A) and (D) of the MMPA (16 U.S.C. 1361 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) direct the Secretary of Commerce to allow, upon request, the incidental, but not intentional, taking of small numbers of marine mammals by U.S. citizens who engage in a specified activity (other than commercial fishing) within a specified geographical region if certain findings are made and either regulations are issued or, if the taking is limited to harassment, a notice of a proposed authorization is provided to the public for review. An authorization for incidental takings shall be granted if NMFS finds that the taking will have a negligible impact on the species or stock(s), will not have an unmitigable adverse impact on the availability of the species or stock(s) for subsistence uses (where relevant), and if the permissible methods of taking and requirements pertaining to the mitigation, monitoring and reporting of such takings are set forth. NMFS has defined “negligible impact” in 50 CFR 216.103 as an impact resulting from the specified activity that cannot be reasonably expected to, and is not reasonably likely to, adversely affect the species or stock through effects on annual rates of recruitment or survival. Except with respect to certain activities not pertinent here, the MMPA defines “harassment” as: any act of pursuit, torment, or annoyance which (i) has the potential to injure a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild (Level A harassment); or (ii) has the potential to disturb a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild by causing disruption of behavioral patterns, including, but not limited to, migration, breathing, nursing, breeding, feeding, or sheltering (Level B harassment). On January 19, 2021, we issued a final rule with regulations to govern the unintentional taking of marine mammals incidental to geophysical survey activities conducted by oil and gas industry operators, and those persons authorized to conduct activities on their behalf (collectively “industry operators”), in U.S. waters of the GOM over the course of 5 years (86 FR 5322, January 19, 2021). The rule was based on our findings that the total taking from the specified activities over the 5-year period will have a negligible impact on the affected species or stock(s) of marine mammals and will not have an unmitigable adverse impact on the availability of those species or stocks for subsistence uses, and became effective on April 19, 2021. The regulations at 50 CFR 217.180 <E T="03">et seq.</E> allow for the issuance of LOAs to industry operators for the incidental take of marine mammals during geophysical survey activities and prescribe the permissible methods of taking and other means of effecting the least practicable adverse impact on marine mammal species or stocks and their habitat (often referred to as mitigation), as well as requirements pertaining to the monitoring and reporting of such taking. Under § 217.186 (e), issuance of an LOA shall be based on a determination that the level of taking will be consistent with the findings made for the total taking allowable under these regulations and a determination that the amount of take authorized under the LOA is of no more than small numbers. NMFS subsequently discovered that the 2021 rule was based on erroneous take estimates. We conducted another rulemaking using correct take estimates and other newly available and pertinent information relevant to the analyses supporting some of the findings in the 2021 final rule and the taking allowable under the regulations. We issued a final rule in April 2024, effective May 24, 2024 (89 FR 31488, April 24, 2024). The 2024 final rule made no changes to the specified activities or the specified geographical region in which those activities would be conducted, nor to the original 5-year period of effectiveness. In consideration of the new information, the 2024 rule presented new analyses supporting affirmance of the negligible impact determinations for all species, and affirmed that the existing regulations, which contain mitigation, monitoring, and reporting requirements, are consistent with the “least practicable adverse impact” standard of the MMPA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of Request and Analysis</HD> LLOG's new survey plans include conducting survey effort at multiple platform locations in the GOM. Survey effort could be conducted as Zero Offset, Offset, or Walkaway vertical seismic profile (VSP), Salt Proximity Survey, and/or Checkshot survey. Water depths at the locations where LLOG plans to conduct survey effort range from approximately 366 to 2,300 meters (m). LLOG plans to use either a 12-element, 2,400 cubic inch (in <SU>3</SU> ) airgun array, or a 6-element, 1,500 in <SU>3</SU> airgun array. LLOG currently has 7 active LOAs associated with similar survey activities as described above: 3 in zone 7, effective January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2024 (87 FR 78652, December 22, 2022), effective May 12, 2023 through December 31, 2024 (88 FR 31715, May 18, 2023), and effective March 1, 2022 through April 19, 2026 (89 FR 751, January 5, 2024); 2 in zone 5, effective September 21, 2023 through December 31, 2025 (88 FR 66409, September 27, 2023) and effective March 1, 2022 through April 19, 2026 (89 FR 14056, February 26, 2024); and 2 in zone 6, effective July 1, 2023 through July 5, 2025 (88 FR 41909, June 28, 2023) and effective September 16, 2024 through April 19, 2026 (89 FR 77475, September 23, 2024). The purpose of the newly issued LOA is to combine all LLOG survey activities, including remaining survey activity associated with the seven existing LOAs as well as newly planned survey activity, under a single LOA. This newly issued LOA would reduce workload for both LLOG and NMFS and streamline reporting. The new activity includes additional areas not covered under any active LLOG survey LOAs. As such, the seven active LOAs will expire to coincide with this new LOA that covers all of LLOGs survey activity. All currently active LOAs issued to LLOG were superseded by this new LOA, and all survey activity covered under previously active LOAs is now covered under this LOA. Consistent with the preamble to the final rule, the new survey effort proposed by LLOG in its LOA request was used to develop LOA-specific take estimates based on the acoustic exposure modeling results described in the preamble (89 FR 31488, April 24, 2024). In order to generate the appropriate take number for authorization, the following information was considered: (1) survey type; (2) location (by modeling zone  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> ); (3) number of days; (4) source; and (5) month. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> In this case, the 4,130 in <SU>3</SU> airgun array was selected. This proxy selection represents the least impactful modeled airgun array, but remains conservative for purposes of evaluating LLOG's planned survey effort ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> maximum 12-element, 2,400 in <SU>3</SU> array). The acoustic exposure modeling performed in support of the rule provides 24-hour exposure estimates for each species, specific to each modeled source and survey type in each zone and month. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  For purposes of acoustic exposure modeling, the GOM was divided into seven zones. Zone 1 is not included in the geographic scope of the rule. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  Acoustic propagation modeling was performed for two seasons: winter (December-March) and summer (April-November). Marine mammal density data is generally available on a monthly basis, and therefore further refines take estimates temporally. </FTNT> No VSP surveys were included in the modeled survey types, and use of existing proxies ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> two-dimensional (2D), three-dimensional (3D) (narrow-azimuth) NAZ, 3D (wide-azimuth) WAZ, Coil) is generally conservative for use in evaluation of VSP survey effort, largely due to the greater area covered by the modeled proxies. Summary descriptions of these modeled survey geometries are available in the preamble to the 2018 proposed rule (83 FR 29212, 29220, June 22, 2018). Coil wa ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. 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