Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to U.S. Coast Guard Construction in Florence, Oregon

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[RTID 0648-XE693]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to U.S. Coast Guard Construction in Florence, Oregon</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 U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) to incidentally harass marine mammals during pile driving activities associated with Station Siuslaw River construction project in Florence, Oregon. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The authorization is effective from November 1, 2025 through October 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/action/incidental-take-authorization-us-coast-guards-station-siuslaw-river-construction-project.</E> In case of problems accessing these documents, please call the contact listed below. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jenna Harlacher, 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 October 26, 2023, NMFS received a request from the USCG for an IHA to take marine mammals incidental to pile driving activity associated with the Station Siuslaw River construction project in Florence, Oregon. Following NMFS' review of the application, we received a revised version of the application on April 18, 2024. After finalizing construction details, the USCG submitted revised versions on July 16, 2024 and October 16, 2024, followed by a final revised version on November 18, 2024, which was deemed adequate and complete on December 5, 2024. USCG's request is for take of harbor seal, California sea lion, Steller sea lion, and harbor porpoise by Level B harassment, and for harbor seal and harbor porpoise, Level A harassment. Neither USCG nor NMFS expect serious injury or mortality to result from this activity and, therefore, an IHA is appropriate. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Description of Activity</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Overview</HD> The USCG requested an IHA to correct shoreline erosion and replace the covered mooring and appurtenant structures at USCG Station Siuslaw River in Florence, Oregon (figure 1). This two-phased project entails both onshore and in-water construction activities including site preparation, demolition, shoreline stabilization measures, pile removal and installation, and overwater construction. Phase 1 includes onshore infrastructure improvements, sitework and shoreline stabilization, and phase 2 includes overwater and in-water construction including all pile install and removal. The only part of the project that may result in Level A and Level B harassment of marine mammals, and further analyzed in this notice, are the in-water construction activities associated with vibratory and impact pile driving (phase 2). The USCG plans to remove 71 timber piles via vibratory driving and to install 79 total piles via vibratory and impact driving with an estimated 48 total days of pile removal and install. USCG plans to install 16-inch (in) (40.6 centimeters (cm)) to 20-in (50.8 cm) steel pipe piles, and/or 14-in (35.6 cm) H-piles for their new infrastructure. Pile driving will only occur within the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) approved in-water work window; however the IHA will have a 1-year period of effectiveness. 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 7082, January 21, 2025). Since that time, no changes have been made to the planned construction 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 specific activity. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments and Responses</HD> A notice of NMFS' proposal to issue an IHA to USCG was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on January 21, 2025 (90 FR 7082). That notice described, in detail, USCG's activities, the marine mammal species that may be affected by the activities, 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. This proposed notice was available for a 30-day public comment period. 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. Pacific Marine Mammal SARs. All values presented in table 1 are the most recent available at the time of publication (including from the draft 2023 SARs) 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,r40,8,8"> <TTITLE> Table 1—Marine Mammal Species  <SU>1</SU> Likely To Occur Near the Project Area That May Be Taken by USCG's Activities </TTITLE> <CHED H="1">Common name</CHED> <CHED H="1">Scientific name</CHED> <CHED H="1">Stock</CHED> <E T="02">Odontoceti (toothed whales, dolphins, and porpoises)</E> </ENT> </ROW> <ROW EXPSTB="00"> <ENT I="22"> <E T="03">Family Phocoenidae (porpoises):</E> </ENT> </ROW> <ROW RUL="s"> <ENT I="03">Harbor Porpoise</ENT> <ENT> <E T="03">Phocoena phocoena</E> <ENT>7,492 (0.421, 5,332, 202 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 69k characters. 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