Regulated Navigation Area; Cuyahoga River, Cleveland, OH

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 165</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2024-0393]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA11</RIN> <SUBJECT>Regulated Navigation Area; Cuyahoga River, Cleveland, OH</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 issuing a final rule establishing a Regulated Navigation Area (RNA) for certain waters of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio. This action is necessary to provide for the safety of life on these navigable waters near the “Irishtown Bend” in Cleveland, Ohio, during a bank stabilization construction project from December 2, 2024, with an anticipated completion date of all waterside work on July 11, 2025. This rulemaking limits vessel speeds near the area and prohibits vessels from being inside the RNA during construction hours unless authorized by the Captain of the Port Sector Eastern Great Lakes or a designated representative. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective from March 27, 2025 through July 11, 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-2024-0393 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> For information about this document call or email, call or email MST1 Cody Mayrer at Marine Safety Unit Cleveland's Waterways Management Division, U.S. Coast Guard; telephone 216-937-0111, email <E T="03">D09-SMB-MSUCLEVELAND-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">DHS Department of Homeland Security</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FR Federal Register</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">IFR Interim Final Rule</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> On December 17, 2023, Goettle Construction company notified the Coast Guard that they will be conducting waterside construction associated with a bank stabilization project on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio from August 15, 2024, through November 30, 2025. Construction is intended to shore-up and replace approximately 2,400 linear feet of corrugated steel bulkhead located on the western (left descending) bank of the Cuyahoga River between the Detroit-Superior Bridge and the Columbus Road Bridge. The Captain of the Port Sector Eastern Great Lakes (COTP) has determined that potential hazards associated with the equipment used to complete this project would be a safety concern for any craft intending to navigate near the project area during construction hours. Furthermore, additional safety measures are necessary to keep workers on the construction barges safe while completing the construction project. There will be impacts to the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland during this stabilization project. However, this work is necessary because if the bank of the river is allowed to slide into the river, then it could potentially close the river for an estimated 12-18 months for all vessel traffic. The Coast Guard published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on May 21, 2024, with a 30-day comment period, 89 FR 44622. During this period, 10 comments were received. After a review of all comments, several meetings were held with project stakeholders to discuss concerns over impacts to commercial vessel traffic in the affected area of the navigable waterway. The result of the analysis of the comments and collaboration with stakeholders was to maintain the original engineering scope of the project, however, with modified project dates and timing to accommodate stakeholder concerns related to vessel and facility scheduling. The Coast Guard is satisfied with these modifications to the project schedule. Due to the significant nature of this project, and in the interest of continued collaboration with stakeholders, the Coast Guard published an Interim Final Rule (IFR) on November 25, 2024. This rulemaking provided for an additional 30-day comment period. Also, under 5 U.S.C. 553(d)(3), the Coast Guard found that good cause existed for making this rule effective less than 30 days after publication in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . Delaying the effective date of this rule would be impracticable because of the need to protect the public from hazards associated with the project. The Coast Guard proposed this rulemaking under authority in 46 U.S.C. 70011 & 70034. The authority to promulgate regulations under this section is delegated to the Commandant of the Coast Guard under Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Delegation No. 00170.1(II)(70), Revision No. 01.4. The IFR comment period ended on December 26, 2024, and no comments were received. As a result, this Final Rule is issued. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Legal Authority and Need for Rule</HD> The Coast Guard is issuing this Final Rule under authority in 46 U.S.C. 70011 & 70034. The authority to promulgate regulations under this section is delegated to the Commandant of the Coast Guard under Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Delegation No. 00170.1(II)(70), Revision No. 01.4. This rulemaking limits vessel speeds near the area and prohibits vessels from being inside the RNA during construction hours unless authorized by the Captain of the Port Sector Eastern Great Lakes or a designated representative. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of Comments, Changes, and the Rule</HD> As noted above, no comments were received on the IFR published November 25, 2024. There are no changes in the regulatory text of this rule from the proposed rule in the IFR. This rule establishes a RNA starting on December 2, 2024, with an anticipated completion date of July 11, 2025. The RNA would cover all navigable waters within 10 feet of construction barges in the Cuyahoga River located on the western bank (left descending bank) of the Cuyahoga River between the Detroit-Superior Bridge and the Columbus Road Bridge in Cleveland, Ohio. The duration of the Regulated Navigation Area is intended to ensure the safety of vessels and these navigable waters during the following scheduled hours of the construction project: <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• December 2, 2024, through January 31, 2025</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">○ 7 a.m. each Tuesday through 7 a.m. each Thursday</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• February 3, 2025, through February 28, 2025</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">○ No transit restrictions required due to lack of anticipated vessel traffic</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• March 3, 2025, through March 28, 2025</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">○ 8 a.m. through 4 p.m. each Monday through Friday</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• March 31, 2025, through July 11, 2025</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">○ 7 a.m. each Tuesday through 7 a.m. each Thursday</FP> No vessel or craft would be permitted to be operated within 10 feet of the construction barges without obtaining permission from the COTP or a designated representative. The regulatory text appears at the end of this document. The economic impact of this rule is reduced to reasonable minimums as a result of consideration of comments and collaboration with affected stakeholders. <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, and we discuss First Amendment rights of protestors. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Regulatory Planning and Review</HD> Executive Orders 12866 (Regulatory Planning and Review) and 13563 (Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review) 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 (including potential economic, environmental, public health and safety effects, distributive impacts, and equity). Executive Order 13563 emphasizes the importance of quantifying both costs and benefits, of reducing costs, of harmonizing rules, and of promoting flexibility. Two additional Executive orders were recently published to promote the goals of Executive Order 13563: Executive Order 13609 (Promoting International Regulatory Cooperation) and Executive Order 13610 (Identifying and Reducing Regulatory Burdens). Executive Order 13609 targets international regulatory cooperation to reduce, eliminate, or prevent unnecessary differences in regulatory requirements. Executive Order 13610 aims to modernize the regulatory systems and to reduce unjustified regulatory burdens and costs on the public. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has not designated this rule a significant regulatory action under section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866. A regulatory analysis (RA) follows. <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 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 19k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━