Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Okeechobee Waterway, Stuart, FL

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 117</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. USCG-2022-0222]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA09</RIN> <SUBJECT>Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Okeechobee Waterway, Stuart, FL</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 changing the operating schedule that governs the Florida East Coast (FEC) Railroad Bridge, across the Okeechobee Waterway (OWW), mile 7.41, at Stuart, FL. This rule will allow the drawbridge to operate on a more predictable and reliable schedule to meet the needs of competing modes of transportation. This action is necessary due to a significant increase in railway activity. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective November 17, 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.regulations.gov.</E> Type the docket number (USCG-2022-0222) 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 call or email Ms. Jennifer Zercher, Bridge Management Specialist, Coast Guard Southeast District; telephone 571-607-5951, email <E T="03">Jennifer.N.Zercher@uscg.mi</E> l. </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> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">TD Temporary Deviation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">OWW Okeechobee Waterway</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FL Florida</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">TIR Temporary Interim Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">NOI Notice of Inquiry</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">SNOI Supplemental Notice of Inquiry</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FECR Florida East Coast Railway</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">FEC Florida East Coast</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background Information and Regulatory History</HD> On May 3, 2022, the Coast Guard published a Notification of Inquiry (NOI); request for comments in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (87 FR 26145). This NOI sought information from waterway users in response to provided questions. Those questions focused on waterway usage and navigation in the vicinity of the railroad and highway bridges. On June 10, 2022, a Supplemental Notification of Inquiry (SNOI); request for comments was published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (87 FR 35472). The SNOI provided clarification on the Coast Guard's intent in gathering information. The Coast Guard was seeking information regarding usage and equitable access to the waterway. We received a total of 2358 comments on those publications. Those comments were taken into consideration when developing the temporary test deviation published on June 8, 2023. On June 8, 2023, the Coast Guard published a notice titled “Temporary deviation from regulations; request for comments” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (88 FR 37470) (Temporary Deviation 1). The deviation was effective from 12:01 a.m. on June 21, 2023, through 11:59 p.m. on December 17, 2023. Under Temporary Deviation 1, the railroad bridge opened twice an hour upon request and was required to remain in the open position if trains were not crossing the bridge. Additional operating requirements were specified by the Coast Guard. The comment period ended on August 4, 2023, with 371 comments received. Those comments were taken into consideration when developing Temporary Deviation 2, which was published on August 11, 2023. On August 11, 2023, the Coast Guard published a notice titled “Temporary deviation from regulations; cancellation” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (88 FR 54488). This action cancelled Temporary Deviation 1, as it was determined FEC Railway (FECR) was experiencing extreme difficulty meeting the requirements of the temporary deviation. On August 11, 2023, the Coast Guard also published a notice titled “Temporary deviation from regulations; request for comments” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (88 FR 54487) (Temporary Deviation 2). The deviation was effective from 12:01 a.m. on August 15, 2023, through 11:59 p.m. on December 17, 2023. Under Temporary Deviation 2, the railroad bridge was maintained in the fully open-to-navigation position, except during periods when it closed for the passage of train traffic. Additional operating requirements were specified by the Coast Guard, one of which was a fixed 15-minute opening period each hour. The comment period ended October 15, 2023, with 211 comments received. Those comments were addressed in Temporary Deviation 3, which was published on February 6, 2024. On November 7, 2023, the Coast Guard published a notice titled “Temporary deviation from regulations; reopening the comment period” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (88 FR 76666). This action was necessary due to a delay in the start of passenger rail service. Due to the delay, the public was not afforded adequate opportunity to provide comments on Temporary Deviation 2 during actual passenger rail service operations. The comment period ended November 30, 2023, with 4 comments received. Those comments were addressed in Temporary Deviation 3, which was published on February 6, 2024. On December 7, 2023, the Coast Guard published a notice titled “Temporary deviation from regulations; modification” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (88 FR 85111). The deviation was effective from 12:01 a.m. on December 18, 2023, through 11:59 p.m. on February 11, 2024. This action extended Temporary Deviation 2 to allow for the review of public comments, while providing continuity in the operation of the drawbridge. An additional comment period was not provided for the extension of Temporary Deviation 2 since multiple comment periods had already been provided. On February 6, 2024, the Coast Guard published a notice titled “Temporary deviation from regulations; request for comments” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (89 FR 8074) (Temporary Deviation 3). The deviation was effective from 12:01 a.m. on February 12, 2024, through 11:59 p.m. on August 9, 2024. Under Temporary Deviation 3, the railroad bridge was maintained in the fully open-to-navigation position, except during periods when it closed for the passage of train traffic. Additional operating requirements were specified by the Coast Guard, one of which was a fixed 10-minute opening period each hour. The comment period ended May 6, 2024, with one comment received. That comment is addressed in the NPRM, which was published on March 25, 2025 (90 FR 13573). On August 7, 2024, the Coast Guard published a Temporary Interim Rule (TIR) with request for comments in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (89 FR 64367). The temporary interim rule was effective from August 9, 2024, through 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 2024. This action was necessary to allow for continuity of drawbridge operations while the Coast Guard reviewed comments, and the Coast Guard Commissioned Marine Traffic Study of the Okeechobee Waterway (St. Lucie) (study) associated with the temporary test deviation. The comment period for the TIR ended September 23, 2024, with one comment received. That comment is addressed in the NPRM, which was published on March 25, 2025 (90 FR 13573). On February 7, 2025, the Coast Guard published a TIR with request for comments in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (90 FR 9126). The temporary interim rule was effective from February 7, 2025, through 11:59 p.m. on May 31, 2025. This action allowed for continuity for drawbridge operations while the Coast Guard evaluates documentation received for a request to permanently change the operating regulation. The comment period for the TIR ended March 10, 2025, with 22 comments received, and those comments are addressed in Section IV of this Final Rule. On March 25, 2025, the Coast Guard published a NPRM entitled “Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Okeechobee Waterway, Stuart, FL” in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (90 FR 13573). There we stated why we issued the NPRM and invited comments on our proposed regulatory change. During the comment period that ended April 24, 2025, we received two comments, and those comments are addressed in Section IV of this Final Rule. On May 19, 2025, the Coast Guard published a TIR in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> (90 FR 21223). The temporary interim rule is effective from June 1, 2025, through 11:59 p.m. on September 30, 2025. This action allowed for continuity for drawbridge operations while the Coast Guard evaluates documentation received for a request to permanently change the operating regulation. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Legal Authority and Need for Rule</HD> The Coast Guard is issuing this rule under authority 33 U.S.C. 499. The Florida East Coast (FEC) Railroad Bridge across the Okeechobee Waterway (OWW), mile 7.41, at Stuart, FL, is a single-leaf bascule bridge with a six-foot vertical clearance at mean high water in the closed position. The normal operating schedule for the bridge is found in 33 CFR 117.317(c). Railway activity has significantly increased across the FEC Railroad Bridge. The Coast Guard is changing the operating regulation for the railroad bridge to allow the drawbridge to operate a more predictable and reliable schedule to meet the needs of competing modes of tr ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 27k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━