Special Local Regulation, East River, Mathews, Virginia

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 100</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2025-0156]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA08</RIN> <SUBJECT>Special Local Regulation, East River, Mathews, Virginia</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, Department of Homeland Security. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard is proposing to establish a special local regulation for certain waters on the East River in Mathews, VA. This action is necessary to provide for the safety of life on these navigable waters during an annual “Wharf to Wharf Swim.” This proposed rulemaking would prohibit persons and vessels from entering the regulated area unless authorized by the Captain of the Port, Sector Virginia or a designated representative. We invite your comments on this proposed rulemaking. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments and related material must be received by the Coast Guard on or before May 7, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments, identified by docket number USCG-2025-0156, using the 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 for further 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 about this proposed rulemaking, call or email LCDR Justin Strassfield, Sector Virginia, Waterways Management Division, U.S. Coast Guard, telephone: (571) 608-2969; or <E T="03">virginiawaterways@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">COTP Captain of the Port, Sector Virginia</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">DHS Department of Homeland Security</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FR Federal Register</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NPRM Notice of proposed rulemaking</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">PATCOM Patrol Commander</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">SLR Special Local Regulation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background, Purpose, and Legal Basis</HD> On January 2, 2025, the Coast Guard received a request, under 33 CFR 100.15, from the Mathews Outdoor Club, for a Marine Event Permit to host a 1-mile long, open water swim to be held on August 16, 2025, from 10 a.m. until noon, in Mathews, VA. The club has indicated that it plans to host this swim annually thereafter, on the third Saturday of August. The open water swim will include approximately 50 participants and 10 spectator craft. Hazards which might arise from the open water swim include the possibility that participants swimming within the navigable channel might collide with or otherwise interfere with vessels operating in the channel, as well as the possibility that participants swimming within approaches to local public and private boat facilities might collide with or otherwise interfere with boaters near those facilities. The Captain of the Port, Sector Virginia (COTP) has determined that these potential hazards associated would be a safety concern for anyone intending to operate within the specified waters of the East River. The COTP, after approving plans for the holding of a regatta or marine parade within his or her district or zone, is authorized to promulgate such special local regulations (SLRs) as he or she deems necessary to ensure safety of life on the navigable waters immediately prior to, during, and immediately after the approved regatta or marine parade. 33 CFR 100.35. The purpose of this rulemaking is to protect event participants, non-participants, and transiting vessels before, during, and after the scheduled event by promulgating a SLR for the annual event. The Coast Guard is proposing this rulemaking under statutory authority in 46 U.S.C. 70041. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Proposed Rule</HD> The COTP is proposing to establish a SLR which would be codified within 33 CFR 100.501 (Special Local Regulations; Marine Events Within the Fifth Coast Guard District). The SLR would be subject to enforcement annually, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the third Saturday of August. There is no alternate day planned for this event. Section 100.501 provides, however, that, in the case of inclement weather or other just cause found by the respective COTP, an event may be conducted within 30 days before or after the date(s) identified in the SLR. See 33 CFR 100.501(g). The proposed regulated area would be located on the East River, in the vicinity of Williams Wharf Landing, in Mathews, VA, on a designated, marked course between Hick's Wharf, and it would continue across the East River, to the coastline directly across from Williams Wharf. The coordinates of the regulated area are provided in the language of the draft rule, provided below. The regulated area is approximately 760 yards in length and 700 yards in width. The proposed enforcement period for the rule and the size of the regulated area have been chosen to ensure the safety of life on these navigable waters before, during, and after the open water swim scheduled from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. on the third Saturday of August annually. As provided in 33 CFR 100.501(d)(1), the COTP and Coast Guard Event Patrol Commander (PATCOM) would have authority to forbid and control the movement of all vessels and persons, including event participants, in the regulated area. No vessel or person would be permitted to enter the regulated area without obtaining permission from the COTP or Event PATCOM. The regulatory text we are proposing appears at the end of this document. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Regulatory Analyses</HD> We developed this proposed rule after considering numerous statutes and Executive orders related to rulemaking. Below we summarize our analyses based on a number of these statutes and Executive orders, and we discuss First Amendment rights of protestors. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Regulatory Planning and Review</HD> Executive Orders 12866 and 13563 direct agencies to assess the costs and benefits of available regulatory alternatives and, if regulation is necessary, to select regulatory approaches that maximize net benefits. This NPRM has not been designated a “significant regulatory action,” under section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866. Accordingly, the NPRM has not been reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This regulatory action determination is based on the size, location, duration, and time-of-day of the enforcement period of the special local regulation. This special local regulation would impact a small, designated area of the East River for only 2 hours one day a year. Moreover, the Coast Guard would issue a Broadcast Notice to Mariners via VHF-FM marine channel 16 about the regulated area, and the proposed rule would allow vessels to seek permission to enter the regulated area. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Impact on Small Entities</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, 5 U.S.C. 601-612, as amended, requires Federal agencies to consider the potential impact of regulations on small entities during rulemaking. The term “small entities” comprises small businesses, not-for-profit organizations that are independently owned and operated and are not dominant in their fields, and governmental jurisdictions with populations of less than 50,000. The Coast Guard certifies under 5 U.S.C. 605(b) that this proposed rule would not have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. While some owners or operators of vessels intending to transit the SLR may be small entities, for the reasons stated in section IV.A above, this proposed rule would not have a significant economic impact on any vessel owner or operator. If you think that your business, organization, or governmental jurisdiction qualifies as a small entity and that this proposed rule would have a significant economic impact on it, please submit a comment (see <E T="02">ADDRESSES</E> ) explaining why you think it qualifies and how and to what degree this proposed rule would economically affect it. Under section 213(a) of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 (Pub. L. 104-121), we want to assist small entities in understanding this proposed rule. If the proposed rule would affect your small business, organization, or governmental jurisdiction and you have questions concerning its provisions or options for compliance, please call or email the person listed in the <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> section. The Coast Guard will not retaliate against small entities that question or complain about this proposed rule or any policy or action of the Coast Guard. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Collection of Information</HD> This proposed rule would not call for a new collection of information under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501-3520). <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. Federalism and Indian Tribal Governments</HD> A rule has implications for federalism under Executive Order 13132 (Federalism), if it has a substantial direct effect on the States, on the relationship between the National Government and the States, or on the distribution of power and responsibilities among the various levels of government. We have analyzed this proposed rule under that order and have determined that it is consistent with the fundamental federalism principles and preemption requirements described in Executive Order 13132. Also, this proposed rule does not have Tribal implications und ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 17k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━