Regulated Navigation Area; Cuyahoga River, Cleveland, OH

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 165</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket Number USCG-2024-0393]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA11</RIN> <SUBJECT>Regulated Navigation Area; Cuyahoga River, Cleveland, OH</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Interim rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard is issuing an interim rule that will extend enforcement of an existing temporary Regulated Navigation Area (RNA) for certain waters of the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio. This action is necessary to provide for the safety of life on these navigable waters near the “Irishtown Bend” in Cleveland, Ohio, during a bank stabilization construction project from July 11, 2025, with an anticipated completion date of all waterside work on November 30, 2025. This rulemaking continues to limit vessel speeds near the area and prohibit vessels from being inside the RNA during construction hours unless authorized by the Captain of the Port Sector Eastern Great Lakes or a designated representative. We invite your comments on this rulemaking. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This interim rule is effective from July 11, 2025 through November 30, 2025. Comments and related material must be received by the Coast Guard July 11, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2024-0393 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. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For information about this document call or email, call or email MST1 Cody Mayrer at Marine Safety Unit Cleveland's Waterways Management Division, U.S. Coast Guard; telephone 216-937-0111, email <E T="03">D09-SMB-MSUCLEVELAND-WWM@uscg.mil.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents for Preamble</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Abbreviations</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Basis and Purpose, and Regulatory History</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Discussion of Comments and Changes</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Discussion of the Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Regulatory Analyses</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Regulatory Planning and Review</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Small Entities</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Assistance for Small Entities</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Collection of Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Federalism</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. Unfunded Mandates</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">G. Taking of Private Property</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">H. Civil Justice Reform</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">I. Protection of Children</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">J. Indian Tribal Governments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">K. Energy Effects</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">L. Technical Standards</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">M. Environment</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Public Participation and Request for Comments</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Abbreviations</HD> <EXTRACT> <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">OMB Office of Management and Budget</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">RNA Regulated Navigation Area</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Basis and Purpose, and Regulatory History</HD> On December 17, 2023, Goettle Construction company notified the Coast Guard that they will be conducting waterside construction associated with a bank stabilization project on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio from August 15, 2024, through November 30, 2025. Construction is intended to shore-up and replace approximately 2,400 linear feet of corrugated steel bulkhead located on the western (left descending) bank of the Cuyahoga River between the Detroit-Superior Bridge and the Columbus Road Bridge. The Captain of the Port Sector Eastern Great Lakes (COTP) has determined that potential hazards associated with the equipment used to complete this project would be a safety concern for any craft intending to navigate near the project area during construction hours. Furthermore, additional safety measures are necessary to keep workers on the construction barges safe while completing the construction project. There will be impacts to the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland during this stabilization project. However, this work is necessary because if the bank of the river is allowed to slide into the river, then it could potentially close the river for an estimated 12-18 months for all vessel traffic. The Coast Guard published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on May 21, 2024, with a 30-day comment period, at 89 FR 44622. That proposed rule proposed that we would enforce the RNA through November 30, 2025. During the NPRM comment period, 10 comments were received. After a review of all comments, several meetings were held with project stakeholders to discuss concerns over impacts to commercial vessel traffic in the affected area of the navigable waterway. Due to the significant nature of this project, and in the interest of continued collaboration with stakeholders, the Coast Guard published an interim rule with request for comment on November 25, 2024. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> That interim rule provided for an additional 30-day comment period. The Coast Guard published the Final Rule on February 25, 2025. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> The result of the analysis of the comments and collaboration with stakeholders was to maintain the original engineering scope of the project with modified project dates and timing to accommodate stakeholder concerns related to vessel and facility scheduling. As a result, the Coast Guard shortened the duration of the RNA to last only until July 11, 2025. We have since learned that the project will not be completed during the shortened duration of the RNA, by July 11. Therefore, we are relying on the original NPRM proposed enforcement dates to extend this RNA until November 30, 2025. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  89 FR 92804. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  90 FR 10594. </FTNT> On March 19, 2025, the Coast Guard held a construction schedule update meeting with the Goettle Construction representative and concerned maritime stakeholders. At the meeting, Goettle Construction indicated that due to various construction issues, the anticipated end date of the waterside work, and thus, the RNA, would need to be extended to November 30, 2025. As a result, this interim rule will provide a comment period on extending the RNA effective period end date as an opportunity for the public to notify us of any new concerns. Based on construction delays in the renovation project, the Coast Guard is effectively extending the dates for the RNA to correspond to the new completion dates for the given work. The Coast Guard is issuing this rulemaking under authority in 46 U.S.C. 70011 and 70034. The authority to promulgate regulations under this section is delegated to the Commandant of the Coast Guard under Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Delegation No. 00170.1(II)(70), Revision No. 01.4. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of the Rule</HD> As noted above, the RNA final rule was issued on February 25, 2025. That final rule established an RNA starting on March 27, 2025, with an anticipated completion date of July 11, 2025. The RNA covered all navigable waters within 10 feet of construction barges in the Cuyahoga River located on the western bank (left descending bank) of the Cuyahoga River between the Detroit-Superior Bridge and the Columbus Road Bridge in Cleveland, Ohio. This IFR effectively extends the duration of the RNA until November 30, 2025 to ensure the safety of vessels and these navigable waters during the following revised scheduled hours of the construction project: • Effective July 11, 2025, through November 30, 2025 the RNA will be enforced from 7 a.m. each Tuesday through 7 a.m. each Thursday. No vessel or craft would be permitted to be operated within 10 feet of the construction barges without obtaining permission from the COTP or a designated representative. The regulatory text appears at the end of this document. The economic impact of this rule is reduced to reasonable minimums as a result of consideration of comments and collaboration with affected stakeholders. If the project is completed before November 30 and there is no longer a safety concern in the area, we will notify the public through local notice to mariners that we are no longer enforcing the RNA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">V. Regulatory Analyses</HD> We developed this rule after considering numerous statutes and Executive orders related to rulemaking. Below we summarize our analyses based on these statutes or Executive orders. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Regulatory Planning and Review</HD> Executive Orders 12866 (Regulatory Planning and Review) and 13563 (Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review) 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. Executive Order 13563 emphasizes the importance of quantifying both costs and benefits, of reducing costs, of harmonizing rules, and of promoting flexibility. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has not designated this rule a “significant regulatory action,” under section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866. Accordingly, OMB has not reviewed it. This regulatory action determination is based on the size, location, and duration of the safety zone. Vessel traffic will be able to safely transit around this R ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 24k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━