Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities Prince William Sound Ferry Terminal Improvement Projects in Cordova, Chenega, and Tatitlek, Alaska

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[RTID 0648-XE765]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities Prince William Sound Ferry Terminal Improvement Projects in Cordova, Chenega, and Tatitlek, 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 authorizations; request for comments on proposed authorizations and possible renewals. <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 the Prince William Sound Ferry Terminal Improvement Projects (PWS Projects) in Cordova, Chenega, and Tatitlek, Alaska. Pursuant to the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), NMFS is requesting comments on its proposal to issue three incidental harassment authorizations (IHAs) to incidentally take marine mammals during the specified activities associated with each of the three projects. NMFS is also requesting comments on possible one-time, 1-year renewals 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 authorizations 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 July 7, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Comments should be addressed to Permits and Conservation Division, Office of Protected Resources, National Marine Fisheries Service and should be submitted via email to <E T="03">ITP.hotchkin@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> Cara Hotchkin, 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. We will review all comments submitted in response to this notice prior to concluding our NEPA process or making a final decision on the IHA requests. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Summary of Request</HD> On September 9, 2024, NMFS received a request from ADOT&PF for three IHAs to take marine mammals incidental to pile driving (installation and removal) associated with construction to improve three existing ferry terminals in Cordova, Chenega, and Tatitlek, Alaska. Following NMFS' review of the application, ADOT&PF submitted revised versions of their request on December 23, 2024, February 18, 2025, and March 13, 2025. The application was deemed adequate and complete on April 15, 2025. ADOT&PF's request is for take of 8 species (13 stocks) of marine mammals by Level B harassment and, for a subset of 5 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> The ADOT&PF, in cooperation with the Maritime Administration and the Prince William Sound Economic Development District, proposes to improve and modify three existing ferry terminals and associated structures at the Cordova Ferry Terminal (Cordova Project), the Chenega Ferry Terminal (Chenega Project), and the Tatitlek Ferry Terminal (Tatitlek Project) located in the Prince William Sound (PWS), Alaska. The Cordova Project would modify the existing stern- and side-berth docking facilities in Cordova, Alaska. The Chenega Project would construct a new side-loading ferry terminal and this includes an approach causeway, vehicle transfer bridge support floats, and mooring structures in Chenega Bay, Alaska. The Tatitlek Project would require retrofitting the existing end-loading ferry terminal facility and construction includes a vehicle transfer bridge, a bridge support float (or bridge support) to replace the existing tidal ramp facility in Tatitlek, Alaska. The ferry terminals require the proposed modifications to accommodate larger Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS) Alaska Class Ferry Vessels (ACFV) which would replace the existing smaller class ferry vessels that would be phased out. Construction activities included as part of the PWS Projects with the potential to result in Level A and B harassment of marine mammals from underwater sound production include vibratory and impact installation, vibratory removal, and down-the-hole (DTH) installation (Chenega and Tatitlek only) of steel pipe piles. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Dates and Duration</HD> Each of the three separate IHAs would be effective for one year from January 1, 2027 through December 31, 2027. ADOT&PF anticipates that in-water construction for the Cordova Project would occur over 60 non-consecutive days within a 3-month construction window beginning in the summer of 2027, with 20 days for pile removal, 12 days for the installation of temporary piles, and 28 days for the installation of permanent mooring dolphins. Construction for the Chenega Project is anticipated to occur over 156 non-consecutive days within a 4-month construction window beginning in the summer of 2027, with 20 days for installation and removal of temporary piles and 136 days for the installation of permanent piles and tension anchors. The Tatitlek Project construction is anticipated to occur over a total of 76 non-consecutive days within a 4-month construction window beginning in the summer of 2027, with 4 days for pile removal, 14 days for temporary pile installation and removal, and 58 days for permanent pile installation. The ADOT&PF conservatively estimated pile installation and removal rates at all three project sites to account for weather conditions, construction and mechanical delays, protected species shutdowns, and logistical constraints. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Specific Geographic Region</HD> The Cordova, Chenega, and Tatitlek Project ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 190k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━