Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Okeechobee Waterway, Stuart, FL

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 117</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. USCG-2022-0222]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA09</RIN> <SUBJECT>Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Okeechobee Waterway, Stuart, FL</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 proposes to modify the operating schedule that governs the Florida East Coast (FEC) Railroad Bridge, across the Okeechobee Waterway (OWW), mile 7.41, at Stuart, FL. This proposed rule will allow the drawbridge to operate on a more predictable and reliable schedule to meet the needs of competing modes of transportation. This action is necessary due to a significant increase in railway activity. We invite your comments on this proposed rulemaking. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and related material must reach the Coast Guard on or before April 24, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2022-0222 using 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 below for 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 on this proposed rule, call or email Ms. Jennifer Zercher, Bridge Management Specialist, Seventh Coast Guard District; telephone 571-607-5951, email <E T="03">Jennifer.N.Zercher@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">OMB Office of Management and Budget</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NPRM Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (Advance, Supplemental)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">TD Temporary Deviation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">OWW Okeechobee Waterway</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FL Florida</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">TIR Temporary Interim Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NOI Notice of Inquiry</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">SNOI Supplemental Notice of Inquiry</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FECR Florida East Coast Railway</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FEC Florida East Coast</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background, Purpose and Legal Basis</HD> The Florida East Coast (FEC) Railroad Bridge across the Okeechobee Waterway (OWW), mile 7.4, at Stuart, FL, is a single-leaf bascule bridge with a six-foot vertical clearance at mean high water in the closed position. The normal operating schedule for the bridge is found in 33 CFR 117.317(c). Railway activity significantly increased across the FEC Railroad Bridge. The Coast Guard is proposing to change the operating regulation for the railroad bridge to allow the drawbridge to operate a more predictable and reliable schedule to meet the needs of competing modes of transportation. On May 3, 2022, the Coast Guard published a Notification of Inquiry (NOI); request for comments in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (87 FR 26145). This NOI sought information from waterway users in response to provided questions. Those questions focused on waterway usage and navigation in the vicinity of the railroad and highway bridges. On June 10, 2022, a Supplemental Notification of Inquiry (SNOI); request for comments was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (87 FR 35472). The SNOI provided clarification on the Coast Guard's intent in gathering information. The Coast Guard was seeking information regarding usage and equitable access to the waterway. We received a total 2358 comments on those publications. Those comments were taken into consideration when developing the temporary test deviation published on June 8, 2023. On June 8, 2023, the Coast Guard published a notice titled “Temporary deviation from regulations; request for comments” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (88 FR 37470) (Temporary Deviation 1). The deviation was effective from 12:01 a.m. on June 21, 2023, through 11:59 p.m. on December 17, 2023. Under Temporary Deviation 1, the railroad bridge opened twice an hour upon request and was required to remain in the open position if trains were not crossing the bridge. Additional operating requirements were specified by the Coast Guard. The comment period ended on August 4, 2023, with 371 comments received. Those comments were taken into consideration when developing Temporary Deviation 2, which was published on August 11, 2023. On August 11, 2023, the Coast Guard published a notice titled “Temporary deviation from regulations; cancellation” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (88 FR 54488). This action cancelled Temporary Deviation 1, as it was determined FEC Railway (FECR) was experiencing extreme difficulty meeting the requirements of the temporary deviation. On August 11, 2023, the Coast Guard also published a notice titled “Temporary deviation from regulations; request for comments” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (88 FR 54487) (Temporary Deviation 2). The deviation was effective from 12:01 a.m. on August 15, 2023, through 11:59 p.m. on December 17, 2023. Under Temporary Deviation 2, the railroad bridge was maintained in the fully open-to-navigation position, except during periods when it closed for the passage of train traffic. Additional operating requirements were specified by the Coast Guard, one of which was a fixed 15-minute opening period each hour. The comment period ended October 15, 2023, with 211 comments received. Those comments were addressed in Temporary Deviation 3, which was published on February 6, 2024. On November 7, 2023, the Coast Guard published a notice titled “Temporary deviation from regulations; reopening the comment period” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (88 FR 76666). This action was necessary due to a delay in the start of passenger rail service. Due to the delay, the public was not afforded adequate opportunity to provide comments on Temporary Deviation 2 during actual passenger rail service operations. The comment period ended November 30, 2023, with 4 comments received. Those comments were addressed in Temporary Deviation 3, which was published on February 6, 2024. On December 7, 2023, the Coast Guard published a notice titled “Temporary deviation from regulations; modification” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (88 FR 85111). The deviation was effective from 12:01 a.m. on December 18, 2023, through 11:59 p.m. on February 11, 2024. This action extended Temporary Deviation 2 to allow for the review of public comments, while providing continuity in the operation of the drawbridge. An additional comment period was not provided for the extension of Temporary Deviation 2 since multiple comment periods had already been provided. On February 6, 2024, the Coast Guard published a notice titled “Temporary deviation from regulations; request for comments” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (89 FR 8074) (Temporary Deviation 3). The deviation was effective from 12:01 a.m. on February 12, 2024, through 11:59 p.m. on August 9, 2024. Under Temporary Deviation 3, the railroad bridge was maintained in the fully open-to-navigation position, except during periods when it closed for the passage of train traffic. Additional operating requirements were specified by the Coast Guard one of which was a fixed 10-minute opening period each hour. The comment period ended May 6, 2024, with one comment received. That comment is addressed below. On August 7, 2024, the Coast Guard published a Temporary Interim Rule (TIR) with request for comments in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (89 FR 64367). The temporary interim rule is effective from August 9, 2024, through 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 2024. This action was necessary to allow for continuity of drawbridge operations while the Coast Guard reviewed comments and the Coast Guard Commissioned Marine Traffic Study of the Okeechobee Waterway (St. Lucie) (study) associated with the temporary test deviation. The comment period for the TIR ended September 23, 2024, with one comment received. That comment is addressed below. On February 7, 2025, the Coast Guard published a TIR with request for comments in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (90 FR 9126). The temporary interim rule is effective from February 7, 2025, through 11:59 p.m. on May 31, 2025. The comment period ends on March 10, 2025. This action allows for continuity for drawbridge operations while the Coast Guard evaluates documentation received for a request to permanently change the operating regulation. The comment received from Temporary Deviation 3 expressed concern for the perceived overall negative impact of trains moving through the City of Stuart. This comment is outside of scope of the temporary deviation and will not be taken into consideration. The comment received from the TIR published on August 7, 2024, was in support of the active temporary deviation. However, the commenter expressed concern, believing the adjacent moveable highway bridge would be required to remain open to navigation during the overnight hours when the railroad bridge is required to be open except for the passage of railway traffic. The commentor misunderstood the temporary drawbridge operating schedule, as the highway bridge is allowed to remain in the down position until a vessel requests an opening. The Coast Guard commissioned an independent c ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 26k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━