Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to the City of Hoonah's Cargo Dock Project, Hoonah, Alaska

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[RTID 0648-XE642]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to the City of Hoonah's Cargo Dock Project, Hoonah, Alaska</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 an 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 an incidental harassment authorization (IHA) to the City of Hoonah (Hoonah) to incidentally harass marine mammals during pile driving and removal activities associated with the Hoonah Cargo Dock project in Hoonah, Alaska. There are no changes from the proposed authorization in this final authorization. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This authorization is effective from September 1, 2025 through August 31, 2026. </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> Rachel Wachtendonk, 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 the species or stocks for taking for certain subsistence uses (referred to in shorthand as “mitigation”); and requirements pertaining to the monitoring and reporting of the takings. The definitions of all applicable MMPA statutory terms 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 NMFS regulations at 50 CFR 216.103. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of Request</HD> On May 10, 2024, NMFS received a request from Hoonah for an IHA to take marine mammals incidental to pile driving and removal activities associated with the Hoonah Cargo Dock project in Hoonah, Alaska. Following NMFS' review of the application, Hoonah submitted a revised versions on September 10, 2024 and October 15, 2024. The application was deemed adequate and complete on October 22, 2024. Hoonah's request is for take of eight species of marine mammals by Level B harassment and, for a subset of these species, Level A harassment. Neither Hoonah nor NMFS expect serious injury or mortality to result from this activity and, therefore, an IHA is appropriate. NMFS previously issued an IHA to Hoonah for the Hoonah Cargo Dock project (86 FR 27410, May 20, 2021), and later changed the effective dates of the IHA in a re-issuance (87 FR 27571, May 9, 2022). However, due to COVID and inflation no work under the IHA was conducted. Since then, Hoonah has made several changes to their project plan and, therefore, a new IHA is appropriate. There are no changes from the proposed IHA to the final IHA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Description of the Specified Activity</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Overview</HD> Hoonah plans to install a cargo dock at the Hoonah Marine Industrial Center (HMIC) in Hoonah, Alaska starting in September 2025. Work would occur on approximately 107 days over a span of 5 months. Construction of the sheet pile cargo dock, barge ramp, and breasting dolphins will require impact and vibratory pile installation and down-the-hole (DTH) drilling (referred to as tension anchoring). The construction of the sheet pile cargo dock, barge ramp, and breasting dolphins will include the installation of 542 (330 linear feet (ft), or 100.6 linear meters (m)) steel sheet piles, 5 steel wye piles, 1 steel X pile, 3 20-inch (in), or 0.51-m steel fender piles, 2 16-in (0.41 m) fender piles, 7 H-piles, 4 36-in (0.91 m) steel pipe piles, and 6 36-in (0.91 m) steel batter piles. The installation and removal of 50 temporary 24-in (0.61 m) steel pipe piles will be completed to support the permanent pile installation. Piles will be installed with vibratory and impact hammers, and temporary piles will be removed with a vibratory hammer. 8-to-10-in (0.20 to 0.25 m) steel pipe casings will be placed in each steel pipe/batter piles as tension anchors and set with tension anchoring. A detailed description of the planned construction project is provided in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice for the proposed IHA (90 FR 1084, January 7, 2025). Since that time, no changes have been made to the planned activities. Therefore, a detailed description is not provided here. Please refer to that <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice for the description of the specified activity. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments and Responses</HD> A notice of NMFS' proposal to issue an IHA to Hoonah was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on January 7, 2025 (90 FR 1084). That notice described, in detail, Hoonah's activity, the marine mammal species that may be affected by the activity, and the anticipated effects on marine mammals. In that notice, we requested public input on the request for authorization described therein, our analyses, the proposed authorization, and any other aspect of the notice of proposed IHA, and requested that interested persons submit relevant information, suggestions, and comments. During the 30-day public comment period, NMFS did not receive any public comments. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Description of Marine Mammals in the Area of Specified Activities</HD> Sections 3 and 4 of the application summarize available information regarding status and trends, distribution and habitat preferences, and behavior and life history of the potentially affected species. NMFS fully considered all of this information, and we refer the reader to these descriptions, instead of reprinting the information. Additional information regarding population trends and threats may be found in NMFS' Stock Assessment Reports (SARs; <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/marine-mammal-protection/marine-mammal-stock-assessments</E> ) and more general information about these species ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> physical and behavioral descriptions) may be found on NMFS' website ( <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/find-species</E> ). Table 1 lists all species or stocks for which take is expected and authorized for this activity and summarizes information related to the population or stock, including regulatory status under the MMPA and Endangered Species Act (ESA) and potential biological removal (PBR), where known. PBR is defined by the MMPA as the maximum number of animals, not including natural mortalities, that may be removed from a marine mammal stock while allowing that stock to reach or maintain its optimum sustainable population (as described in NMFS' SARs). While no serious injury or mortality is anticipated or authorized here, PBR and annual serious injury and mortality (M/SI) from anthropogenic sources are included here as gross indicators of the status of the species or stocks and other threats. Marine mammal abundance estimates presented in this document represent the total number of individuals that make up a given stock or the total number estimated within a particular study or survey area. NMFS' stock abundance estimates for most species represent the total estimate of individuals within the geographic area, if known, that comprises that stock. For some species, this geographic area may extend beyond U.S. waters. All managed stocks in this region are assessed in NMFS' U.S. Alaska and Pacific SARs. All values presented in table 1 are the most recent available at the time of publication and are available online at: <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/marine-mammal-protection/marine-mammal-stock-assessments.</E> <GPOTABLE COLS="7" OPTS="L2,nj,p7,7/8,i1" CDEF="s50,r50,r50,xls30,r50,8,8"> <TTITLE> Table 1—Species  <SU>1</SU> Likely Impacted by the Specified Activities </TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Common name</CHED> <CHED H="1">Scientific name</CHED> <CHED H="1">Stock</CHED> <E T="02">Order Artiodactyla—Cetacea—Mysticeti (baleen whales)</E> </ENT> </ROW> <ROW EXPSTB="00"> <ENT I="22"> <E T="03">Family Balaenopteridae (rorquals):</E> </ENT> </ROW> <ROW> <ENT I="03">Humpback Whale</ENT> <ENT> <E T="03">Megaptera novaeangliae</E> <ENT>3,477 (0.101, 3,18 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 90k characters. 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