Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Hackensack River, Little Snake Hill, NJ

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 117</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. USCG-2024-0412]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA09</RIN> <SUBJECT>Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Hackensack River, Little Snake Hill, NJ</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard is modifying the operating schedule that governs the Amtrak Portal Bridge across the Hackensack River, mile 5.0, at Little Snake Hill, New Jersey. This action is necessary to facilitate the construction of the new replacement Portal Bridge North, as designed by Amtrak as the owner of the bridge, adjacent to the current Amtrak Portal Bridge. This final rulemaking limits the extent of the opening of the Amtrak Portal Bridge in the horizontal position to prevent the swing span from striking the new Portal Bridge North during construction. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective April 25, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> To view documents mentioned in this preamble as being available in the docket, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulation.gov.</E> Type the docket number (USCG-2024-0412) in the “SEARCH” box and click “SEARCH”. In the Document Type column, select “supporting & Related Material.” <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> If you have questions on this rule, call or email Ms. Judy Leung-Yee, First Coast Guard District, Project Officer; telephone 212-514-4336, email <E T="03">Judy.K.Leung-Yee@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</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background, Information and Regulatory History</HD> On October 3, 2024, the Coast Guard published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) entitled Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Hackensack River, Little Snake Hill, NJ in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (89 FR 80436). There we stated why we issued the NPRM and invited comments on our proposed regulatory action related to this regulatory change. During the comment period that ended November 4, 2024, we received two comments, and those comments are addressed in Section IV of this Final Rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Legal Authority and Need for Rule</HD> The Coast Guard is issuing this rule under the authority in 33 U.S.C. 499. The Amtrak Portal Bridge will continue to operate under its regular operating schedule found in 33 CFR 117.723(e), but there will be a difference in the horizontal clearance. Presently, the Amtrak Portal Bridge provides 88 feet horizontal clearance in the east channel and 91 feet horizontal clearance in the west channel. This rule allows the bridge to only open to 55 feet horizontal clearance in the east channel and the west channel will be closed to all navigation. Construction on the new Portal Bridge North will prevent the existing Amtrak Portal Bridge from fully opening in the horizontal position in order to prevent the swing span from striking the new Portal Bridge North during construction. The construction will impact the Amtrak Portal Bridge for approximately 2 years, from March 3, 2025, to March 3, 2027 (estimated), after which the existing bridge will be demolished. The NPRM proposed that the restricted clearance would begin on February 1, 2025, however, due to project delays, the restricted clearance will begin on or about March 3, 2025. While this regulation will be effective 30 days after publication, the Bridge owner can still operate the bridge to its full opening until constructions limits the horizontal opening. There is one regular commercial waterway user that transits the Portal Bridge on an average of two to three round trips per week. There are also some recreational vessels that transit the bridge. The Coast Guard's review of the bridge logs in the last two years shows that bridge openings average 25 per month. Vessels narrower than 55 feet wide will still be able to transit through the narrower opening of the bridge. There are no other known commercial or recreational vessels that will be impacted by this rule. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Discussion of Comments, Changes and the Final Rule</HD> As noted in Section II of this preamble, the Coast Guard provided 30 days for comment regarding this rule and two comments in the docket were received. We provide a detailed discussion below in response to each comment in turn. We received one comment from Towboat Harbor Carriers Association dated November 4, 2024. The comment letter (dated October 30, 2024) included the following four specific concerns: <E T="03">Lack of Maritime Stakeholder Engagement During the Bridge Permitting Process:</E> The commentor stated that the first public meeting regarding the Portal Bridge was not held until July 26, 2022. This was the first time the maritime industry was made aware that the replacement bridge plan that would limit vertical clearance, and that the engineering plan failed to identify that the location of the new bridge would impact the ability of the existing bridge to fully open. <E T="03">Coast Guard Response:</E> For clarification, this rule does not affect the vertical clearance of the bridge as implied in the comment above. Comprehensive maritime stakeholder engagement was conducted during a Marine Traffic Study conducted in 2006 to gather input regarding the vertical and horizontal clearance of the proposed fixed bridge. Numerous maritime stakeholders were contacted during this study for input. After the conclusion of that study and consideration of the feedback, the Coast Guard widely disseminated a Public Notice on 6 April 2010 with the new bridge dimensions and proceeded with issuing a permit having received no negative comments regarding the vertical clearance of the bridge. The Coast Guard permitted the replacement of this bridge on June 6, 2013, based on a design provided by the bridge owner, Amtrak, and its accompanying environmental impact statement approved by the Federal Railroad Administration. Immediately upon being made aware in 2022 of the impact the new bridge's construction and design would have on the ability of the existing bridge to fully open, the Coast Guard facilitated maritime stakeholder outreach to fully assess impacts to navigation. <E T="03">The Proposed Rule Unreasonably Impacts Marine Navigation:</E> The commentor also stated that the proposed modification to the bridge fails to meet the reasonable needs of navigation because it forces mariners to transit through a reduced opening or under the bridge in the closed position. <E T="03">Coast Guard Response:</E> The location and design of the replacement bridge, coupled with the design and age of the current bridge, make it physically impossible to increase the horizontal opening of the current bridge during this phase of construction. Upon review, the Coast Guard identified only one vessel, a commercial tug and barge, that would be impacted by the proposed modification the bridge's operation. The county municipality that owns the barge and transports the cargo successfully transported this cargo by land transportation between 2016 and 2022 and has shifted back to land transportation of the cargo recently in July 2024. The bridge owner investigated various methods of minimizing impacts on marine navigation and determined the proposed construction schedule best balanced impacts on marine transportation with impacts on the 150,000-200,000 daily train commuters who use the existing bridge. Based on the above factors, the Coast Guard assessed that the temporary modification to the bridge's operating schedule meets the reasonable needs of maritime navigation. The Coast Guard will continue to work closely with all stakeholders to adequately understand and serve the needs of all transportation modes while meeting the reasonable needs of maritime navigation. <E T="03">Port of New York and New Jersey Harbor Safety, Navigation and Operations Committee Consultation:</E> The commentor requested that the Committee be consulted on all bridge proposals. <E T="03">Coast Guard Response:</E> The Coast Guard has implemented this consultation as a standard practice for bridge proposals in the Port of New York and New Jersey and also allowed for public comment on the regulatory change through the published NPRM. <E T="03">Bridge Owner Accountability to Avoid Conflicts During Construction:</E> The commentor stated that bridge owners should take accountability for failure to avoid conflicts during construction and that affected parties be compensated for significant commercial losses incurred. <E T="03">Coast Guard Response:</E> The Coast Guard is not the bridge owner. However, when considering bridge actions, the Coast Guard promotes the maritime transportation goals of the Nation while accommodating, to the greatest extent practicable, the needs of all transportation modes. When conflicts arise during bridge construction that are unavoidable, the Coast Guard works with stakeholders across all transportation modes to best meet the needs of commerce in an equitable compromise of all interests. We received a second comment from Vinik Marine Services, LLC dated November 4, 2024. The comment included the following two specific concerns: <E T="03">Inadequate Notice/Approval of Bridge Plans:</E> The commentor stated stating that full implications for navigati ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 20k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━