Special Local Regulations & Safety Zones; USCG Sector Eastern Great Lakes

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Parts 100 and 165</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2024-0879]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA08 and 1625-AA00</RIN> <SUBJECT>Special Local Regulations & Safety Zones; USCG Sector Eastern Great Lakes</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 is proposing to amend existing regulations relating to special local regulations and safety zones that occur annually in Captain of the Port Zone Eastern Great Lakes. This action is necessary to provide for the safety of life on these navigable waters. We invite your comments on this proposed rulemaking. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and related material must be received by the Coast Guard on or before February 20, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2024-0879 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. 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 about this proposed rulemaking, call or email LT William Kelley, Waterways Management at Sector Eastern Great Lakes, U.S. Coast Guard; telephone 716-843-9343, email <E T="03">D09-SMB-SECBuffalo-WWM@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">COTP Captain of the Port</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DHS Department of Homeland Security</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, Purpose, and Legal Basis</HD> The Coast Guard lists annual marine events in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). For USCG Sector Eastern Great Lakes, special local regulations are listed in 33 CFR 100.901 and safety/security zones are listed in 33 CFR 165.939. Over the 2023 calendar year, the Coast Guard was notified of multiple marine events that are conducted on an annual basis. The Coast Guard previously established temporary regulations implementing safety zones or local regulations for each of the respective events. The Captain of the Port (COTP) Sector Eastern Great Lakes determined that potential hazards associated with these events would be a safety concern for anyone within boundaries defined in proposed special local regulations and safety zones during the time period of these respective events. Moreover, the COTP Sector Easter Great Lakes also seeks to rename several of the enumerated events in 33 CFR 165.939 to accurately reflect the current event names. Additionally, the COTP Sector Eastern Great Lakes also determined that some of the events currently listed in the existing regulations are no longer required. The purpose of this rulemaking is to ensure the safety of vessels and the navigable waters before, during, and after each respective scheduled event. The Coast Guard is proposing this rulemaking under authority in 46 U.S.C. 70034 and 70041. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Proposed Rule</HD> The COTP is proposing to amend established special local regulations found in 33 CFR part 100.901 and established safety zone regulations found in 33 CFR part 165.939. The special local regulations and safety zones would cover various navigable waters within boundaries defined below. As stated in prior rulemakings, instituting temporary final rules for each event, the duration of the special local regulations and safety zones are intended to ensure the safety of vessels and these navigable waters before, during, and after the scheduled events. No vessel or person would be permitted to enter these zones without obtaining permission from the COTP or a designated representative. The regulatory organization, text, event details, and precise coordinates for all proposed events appear at the end of this document. A. Proposed events for 33 CFR 100.901: i. Henderson Harbor Sprint Triathlon, Henderson Harbor, NY: A swim loop of a triathlon from the Henderson Harbor Boat Launch around the southern branch of Henderson Harbor in Lake Ontario, on or around the second week of July. <E T="03">(see § 165.T09-0413,</E> 87 FR 37740 <E T="03">)</E> ii. Women Swimmin' for Hospicare, Ithaca, NY: A swim route from Ithaca Yacht Club horizontally to the Eastern shoreline of Cayuga Lake on the second Saturday of August. <E T="03">(see § 160.T09-0544,</E> 89 FR 56677 <E T="03">)</E> B. Proposed events for 33 CFR 165.939: i. United Refining Company of Pennsylvania Fireworks, Erie, PA: Circular safety zone within 583 feet of Dobbins Landing in Presque Isle Bay, Erie, PA, on or around the last week of April. ( <E T="03">See</E> § 165.T2024-0294, 89 FR 27388 <E T="03">)</E> ii. Village of Sodus Point Labor Day Fireworks, Sodus Point, NY: Circular safety zone extending 560 feet around Sodus Point Beach Park in Sodus Bay, Sodus Point, NY on or around the first weekend in September. ( <E T="03">see</E> § 165.T09-0718, 82 FR 40070) iii. Light the Night at Canalside, Buffalo, NY: Circular safety zone extending 350 feet from the end of the pier at Wilkeson Pointe in Buffalo River, Buffalo, NY, on or around the first weekend in October. ( <E T="03">see</E> § 165.T09-0765, 88 FR 66686) iv. City of Oswego Tree Lighting Display, Oswego, NY: Circular safety zone extending 210 feet around a pedestrian walkway over the Oswego River in Oswego, NY, on or around the fourth weekend in November. ( <E T="03">see</E> § 165.T09-0865, 88 FR 80589) v. City of North Tonawanda NYE Fireworks, North Tonawanda, NY: Circular safety zone extending 105 feet from a pedestrian bridge over the Erie Canal in North Tonawanda, NY, on or around the last night in December. <E T="03">(see</E> § 165.T09-0986, 88 FR 89576) vi. Tri CLE Rock Roll Run, Cleveland, OH: Rectangular safety zone on Lake Erie encompassing a race area, immediately adjacent to Edgewater Beach, on or around the 2nd weekend of August. ( <E T="03">see</E> § 165.T09-17714, 89 FR 65203) C. Events with proposed name changes in 33 CFR 165.939. i. 33 CFR 165.939(a)(23) pka. Salute to Our Heroes; event name changed to NYSOPRHP Patriotic-Themed Fireworks Display, Hamlin, NY ii. 33 CFR 165.939(b)(3) pka. High Speed Boat Races; event name changed to Eastlake Willoughby Grand Prix iii. 33 CFR 165.939(b)(4) pka. Downtown Cleveland Alliance July 4th Fireworks; event name changed to City of Cleveland July 4th Fireworks iv. 33 CFR 165.939(b)(6) pka. Parade of Lights; event name changed to Whiskey Island Boat Club Parade of Lights v. 33 CFR 165.939(b)(8) pka. Conneaut Festival; event name changed to Conneaut Red, White, and Boom Over Lake Erie vi. 33 CFR 165.939(b)(12) pka. Lake Erie Open Water Swim; Event name changed to Brogan Open Water Classic D. Events proposed for removal from 33 CFR 100.901. This document is also removing several entries from the table in 33 CFR 100.901 where the categorization of the event or safety zones prescribed are no longer appropriate. Those events are addressed below: i. Fireworks by Grucci, Oswego, NY, currently 33 CFR 100.901, Table 1 (1) Flagship International Offshore Challenge, Erie, PA, currently 33 CFR 100.901, Table 1 (3) ii. Friendship Festival Airshow, Buffalo, NY, currently 33 CFR 100.901, Table 1 (4) iii. NFBRA Red Dog Kilo Time Trials, Tonawanda, NY, currently 33 CFR 100.901, Table 1 (5) iv. Sodus Bay 4th of July Fireworks, Sodus Point, NY, currently 33 CFR 100.901, Table 1 (6) v. Tall Ships Erie, Erie, PA, currently 33 CFR 100.901, Table 1 (7) vi. Thomas Graves Memorial Fireworks Display, Port Bay, NY, currently 33 CFR 100.901, Table 1 (8) vii. Thunder Island Offshore Challenge, Oswego, NY, currently 33 CFR 100.901, Table 1 (9) viii. We Love Erie Days Fireworks, Erie, PA, currently 33 CFR 100.901, Table 1 (10) <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 a number of these statutes and Executive orders, and we discuss First Amendment rights of protestors. <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 NPRM 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 size, location, duration, and time-of-day of each respective event. Each event establishes temporary safety/security zones or special local regulations lasting a short period of time over a small geographic area. <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 no ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 45k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━