Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities Angoon Ferry Terminal Modification Project in Angoon, Alaska

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[RTID 0648-XE746]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities Angoon Ferry Terminal Modification Project in Angoon, 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; proposed incidental harassment authorization; request for comments on proposed authorization and possible renewal. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> NMFS has received a request from the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (ADOT&PF) for authorization to take marine mammals incidental to Angoon Ferry Terminal Modification Project in Angoon, Alaska. Pursuant to the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), NMFS is requesting comments on its proposal to issue an incidental harassment authorization (IHA) to incidentally take marine mammals during the specified activities. NMFS is also requesting comments on a possible one-time, 1-year renewal that could be issued under certain circumstances and if all requirements are met, as described in Request for Public Comments at the end of this notice. NMFS will consider public comments prior to making any final decision on the issuance of the requested MMPA authorization and agency responses will be summarized in the final notice of our decision. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and information must be received no later than April 23, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Comments should be addressed to Jolie Harrison, Chief, Permits and Conservation Division, Office of Protected Resources, National Marine Fisheries Service and should be submitted via email to <E T="03">ITP.davis@noaa.gov.</E> 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. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> NMFS is not responsible for comments sent by any other method, to any other address or individual, or received after the end of the comment period. Comments, including all attachments, must not exceed a 25-megabyte file size. All comments received are a part of the public record and will generally be posted online at <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/permit/incidental-take-authorizations-under-marine-mammal-protection-act</E> without change. All personal identifying information ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> name, address) voluntarily submitted by the commenter may be publicly accessible. Do not submit confidential business information or otherwise sensitive or protected information. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Leah Davis, 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">National Environmental Policy Act</HD> To comply with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA; 42 U.S.C. 4321 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) and NOAA Administrative Order (NAO) 216-6A, NMFS must review our proposed action ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> the issuance of an IHA) with respect to potential impacts on the human environment. This action is consistent with categories of activities identified in Categorical Exclusion B4 (IHAs with no anticipated serious injury or mortality) of the Companion Manual for NAO 216-6A, which do not individually or cumulatively have the potential for significant impacts on the quality of the human environment and for which we have not identified any extraordinary circumstances that would preclude this categorical exclusion. Accordingly, NMFS has preliminarily determined that the issuance of the proposed IHA qualifies to be categorically excluded from further NEPA review. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of Request</HD> On September 6, 2024, NMFS received a request from ADOT&PF for an IHA to take marine mammals incidental to pile driving (installation and removal) associated with construction for one ferry terminal in Angoon, Alaska. Following NMFS' review of the application, ADOT&PF submitted revised versions on November 6, 2024, November 12, 2024, November 26, 2024, and December 23, 2024. A final revised application was submitted on January 6, 2025 and the application was deemed adequate and complete on January 27, 2025. The ADOT&PF request is for take of eight species (12 stocks) by Level B harassment and, for a subset five of these species, Level A harassment. Neither ADOT&PF nor NMFS expect serious injury or mortality to result from this activity and, therefore, an IHA is appropriate. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Description of Proposed Activity</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Overview</HD> ADOT&PF is proposing to make improvements to Angoon Ferry Terminal within Killisnoo Harbor in Angoon, Alaska. The existing Angoon Ferry terminal was originally designed for the Alaska Marine Highway System fast ferries and motor vessels but ADOT&PF is in the process of replacing these aging vessels with longer and wider Alaska Class Ferries. Ferry replacement requires mooring dolphin rearrangement to accommodate these larger vessels as well as upgrades to the lift system from electric to hydraulic actuators for more reliable operations. Construction would occur on approximately 143 non-consecutive in-water work days over the course of 1 year. The proposed activities that have the potential to take marine mammals, by Level A and level B harassment, include down-the-hole drilling (DTH) of rock sockets and tension anchors, vibratory installation and removal of temporary steel pipe piles, vibratory and impact installation of permanent steel pipe piles, and vibratory removal of permanent piles (in cases where piles cannot be removed with direct pull methods). <HD SOURCE="HD2">Dates and Duration</HD> ADOT&PF anticipates the project would require 143 non-consecutive -in water days of pile installation and removal over the course of 1 year. The effective date of the IHA, if issued, would be from May 1, 2026 through April 30, 2027. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Specific Geographic Region</HD> The Angoon Ferry Terminal Modifications Project is located in Killisnoo Harbor in Angoon, Alaska as shown in figure 1. Angoon is a small southeast Alaskan village and the only permanent settlement on Admiralty Island. The ferry terminal is approximately 2 miles (3.2 kilometers (km)) south of Angoon's city center. The ferry terminal is adjacent to the City of Angoon's deep draft dock serving as the community's fuel supply operation, and other marine facilities in Angoon include a small boat harbor and seaplane base on Kootznahoo Inlet. Killisnoo Harbor is approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) wide and is situated between the west shore of Admiralty Island on the eastern side of Chatham Strait, which is one of the most extensive inside passages in Southeast Alaska. Water depths in the harbor are generally 150 feet (45.7 meters (m)) or shallower. <GPH SPAN="3" DEEP="640"> <GID>EN24MR25.000</GID> </GPH> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Detailed Description of the Specified Activity</HD> ADOT&PF is proposing to upgrade the existing Angoon Ferry Terminal to accommodate the new larger Alaska Class Vessel berthing. Work would include installation of three new floating fender dolphins (N4, N8, and N10), replacement of a mooring dolphin (S3), and modification of an existing dolphin (N7, to be renamed N9) to be an ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene panel fender pile, as well as some other above-water work. The N4 floating fender dolphin would be comprised of one 30 inch (70 centimeters (cm)) steel pipe fender pile, two 24 inch (61 cm) vertical steel pipe piles, and two 24 inch (61 cm) batter piles. The N8 and N10 floating fender pile dolphins would each consist of one fender pile, two vertical piles, and two batter piles, all 30-in steel pipe piles. S3 mooring dolphin replacement ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 151k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━