Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Marine and Aviation Operations Research Vessel Relocation at Naval Station Newport, Rhode Island

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[RTID 0648-XE654]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Marine and Aviation Operations Research Vessel Relocation at Naval Station Newport, Rhode Island</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice; issuance of a renewal incidental harassment authorization. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In accordance with the regulations implementing the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) as amended, notification is hereby given that NMFS has issued a renewal incidental harassment authorization (IHA) to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO) to incidentally harass marine mammals during construction activities associated with the relocation of NOAA research vessels at Naval Station Newport (NAVSTA) in Rhode Island. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This renewal IHA is effective for one year from date of issuance. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Electronic copies of the application and supporting documents, as well as a list of the references cited in this document, may be obtained online at: <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/marine-mammal-protection/incidental-take-authorizations-construction-activities.</E> In case of problems accessing these documents, please call the contact listed below. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jessica Taylor, Office of Protected Resources, NMFS, (301) 427-8401. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The MMPA prohibits the “take” of marine mammals, with certain exceptions. 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 (as delegated to NMFS) 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 proposed or, if the taking is limited to harassment, a notice of a proposed IHA is provided to the public for review. Authorization for incidental takings shall be granted if NMFS finds that the taking will have a negligible impact on the species or stock(s) and will not have an unmitigable adverse impact on the availability of the species or stock(s) for taking for subsistence uses (where relevant). Further, NMFS must prescribe the permissible methods of taking and other “means of effecting the least practicable adverse impact” on the affected species or stocks and their habitat, paying particular attention to rookeries, mating grounds, and areas of similar significance, and on the availability of such species or stocks for taking for certain subsistence uses (referred to here as “mitigation”); and requirements pertaining to the monitoring and reporting of the takings. The definition of all applicable MMPA statutory used above are included in the relevant sections below and can be found in section 3 of the MMPA (16 U.S.C. 1362) and the NMFS's implementing regulations at 50 CFR 216.103. NMFS' regulations implementing the MMPA at 50 CFR 216.107(e) indicate that IHAs may be renewed for additional periods of time not to exceed 1 year for each reauthorization. In the notice of proposed IHA for the initial IHA, NMFS described the circumstances under which we would consider issuing a renewal for this activity, and requested public comment on a potential renewal under those circumstances. Specifically, on a case-by-case basis, NMFS may issue a one-time 1-year renewal of an IHA following notice to the public providing an additional 15 days for public comments when (1) up to another year of identical, or nearly identical, activities as described in the Detailed Description of Specified Activities section of the initial IHA issuance notice is planned or (2) the activities as described in the Description of the Specified Activities and Anticipated Impacts section of the initial IHA issuance notice would not be completed by the time the initial IHA expires and a renewal would allow for completion of the activities beyond that described in the <E T="02">DATES</E> section of the notice of issuance of the initial IHA, provided all of the following conditions are met: 1. A request for renewal is received no later than 60 days prior to the needed renewal IHA effective date (recognizing that the renewal IHA expiration date cannot extend beyond 1 year from expiration of the initial IHA). 2. The request for renewal must include the following: • An explanation that the activities to be conducted under the requested renewal IHA are identical to the activities analyzed under the initial IHA, are a subset of the activities, or include changes so minor ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> reduction in pile size) that the changes do not affect the previous analyses, mitigation and monitoring requirements, or take estimates (with the exception of reducing the type or amount of take); and • A preliminary monitoring report showing the results of the required monitoring to date and an explanation showing that the monitoring results do not indicate impacts of a scale or nature not previously analyzed or authorized. 3. Upon review of the request for renewal, the status of the affected species or stocks, and any other pertinent information, NMFS determines that there are no more than minor changes in the activities, the mitigation and monitoring measures will remain the same and appropriate, and the findings in the initial IHA remain valid. An additional public comment period of 15 days (for a total of 45 days), with direct notice by email, phone, or postal service to commenters on the initial IHA, is provided to allow for any additional comments on the proposed renewal. A description of the renewal process may be found on our website at: <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/marine-mammal-protection/incidental-harassment-authorization-renewals.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">History of Request</HD> On December 21, 2022, NMFS announced issuance of an IHA to NOAA OMAO to take marine mammals incidental to construction activities associated with vessel relocation at NAVSTA in Newport, RI (87 FR 78072), effective from February 1, 2024 through January 31, 2025. On November 15, 2024, NMFS received an application for the renewal of that initial IHA. As described in the application for renewal IHA, the activities for which incidental take is authorized consist of activities that are covered by the initial authorization but will not be completed prior to its expiration. As required, the applicant also provided a preliminary monitoring report which confirms that the applicant has implemented the required mitigation and monitoring, and which also shows that no impacts of a scale or nature not previously analyzed or authorized have occurred as a result of the activities conducted. The notice of the proposed renewal incidental harassment authorization was published on January 23, 2025 (90 FR 8009). There are no changes from the proposed renewal IHA to the final renewal IHA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Description of the Specified Activities and Anticipated Impacts</HD> NOAA OMAO's initial IHA authorized take of marine mammals incidental to construction activities associated with NOAA research vessel relocation at NAVSTA in Newport, RI. NOAA OMAO plans to establish adequate pier, shoreside, and support facilities for four NOAA research vessels in Coddington Cove at NAVSTA. All facilities must meet NOAA docking and berthing requirements for the four relocated research vessels. As part of this activity, a new pier, trestle, and bulkhead have been constructed over a total of approximately 191 days. Due to unanticipated delays, NOAA OMAO will be unable to complete the remaining activities before the expiration date of the current IHA. The remaining necessary activities include removal of abandoned guide piles along the bulkhead, demolition of the current floating dock, installation of gangway support piles and fender piles, installation and removal of piles for a construction template, and construction of a small boat floating dock. Vibratory pile driving and removal, impact pile driving, and down-the-hole (DTH) mono-hammer pile installation will be used to complete these remaining construction activities. Approximately 110 days will be necessary to complete these remaining activities. The potential impacts of NOAA OMAO's planned activities on marine mammals could involve acoustic stressors and are unchanged from the impacts described in the notice of the proposed 2022 IHA (87 FR 66133, November 2, 2022). Underwater sound resulting from NOAA OMAO's activities has the potential to result in incidental take of marine mammals in the form of Level A harassment and Level B harassment in the specified geographic region. This renewal IHA is for the remainder of the work that will not be completed by the expiration date of the initial IHA. The renewal IHA will authorize incidental take, by Level A harassment and Level B harassment, of seven species (comprising seven stocks) of marine mammals for a subset of the construction activities to be completed in 1 year, in the same area, using identical construction methods (vibratory pile driving and removal, impact pile driving, and DTH mono-hammer pile installation) described in the initial IHA. Neither NOAA OMAO nor NMFS expect serious injury or mortality to result from th ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 46k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━