Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to the Northeast Supply Enhancement Project in Raritan Bay, Lower New York Bay and the Atlantic Ocean

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[RTID 0648-XF146]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to the Northeast Supply Enhancement Project in Raritan Bay, Lower New York Bay and the Atlantic Ocean</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice; issuance of an incidental harassment authorization. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> Notification is hereby given that NMFS has issued an incidental harassment authorization (IHA) to Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, LLC (Transco), a subsidiary of Williams Partners L.P., to incidentally harass marine mammals during construction activities associated with the Northeast Supply Enhancement Project in Raritan Bay, Lower New York Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This authorization is effective for 1 year from the date of notification by the IHA-holder, not to exceed 1 year from the date of issuance (September 19, 2025). </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> 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. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Kate Fleming, 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. Section 101(a)(5)(A) and (D) of the MMPA (16 U.S.C. 1361 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ) directs 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 (collectively referred to 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">Summary of Request</HD> On May 30, 2025, NMFS received a request from Transco for an IHA to take marine mammals incidental to the Northeast Supply Enhancement Project in Raritan Bay, Lower New York Bay and the Atlantic Ocean (in the New York Bight). During NMFS' application review, Transco indicated that two hammers at the same location may operate at the same time and provided scenarios for simultaneous pile driving on July 11, 2025, which necessitated additional analysis. Following NMFS' review of the application and subsequent discussions between NMFS and Transco, the application was deemed adequate and complete on July 29, 2025. Transco's initial request was for authorization of take of 14 species of marine mammals by Level B harassment and, for a subset of 4 of these species, Level A harassment. Following additional analysis, NMFS proposed to authorize take of 15 species of marine mammals by Level B harassment and, for a subset of 7 of these species, Level A harassment (90 FR 38104, August 7, 2025). NMFS has authorized this take as proposed. Neither Transco nor NMFS expect serious injury or mortality to result from this activity and, therefore, an IHA is appropriate. NMFS previously issued an IHA to Transco for the same project (85 FR 15125, March 17, 2020) as updated in the 2025 application. No work was conducted under the 2020 IHA. NMFS also previously issued a separate IHA to Transco for its Lower New York Bay Lateral Maintenance (LNYBL) that occurred in the same region (89 FR 20170, March 21, 2024). Transco conducted all required monitoring and reporting under the 2024 IHA, and information regarding Transco's monitoring results may be found in the Potential Effects of the Specified Activity on Marine Mammals and their Habitat section of the proposed IHA (90 FR 38104, August 7, 2025). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Description of the Specified Activity</HD> Transco plans to expand its existing interstate natural gas transmission system in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and its existing offshore natural gas transmission system in New Jersey and New York waters. The offshore pipeline facilities would include the installation of the Raritan Bay Loop, which would be located primarily in Raritan Bay, as well as parts of the Lower New York Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Construction of the Raritan Bay Loop pipeline would require vibratory and impact installation and vibratory removal of 163 temporary piles, ranging in size from 10 to 60-inches (in) (0.3 to 1.5 meters (m)) in diameter, which may result in the incidental take of marine mammals. A detailed description of the planned construction activities is provided in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice for the proposed IHA (90 FR 38104, August 7, 2025). Since that time, no changes have been made to the planned activities. Therefore, a detailed description is not provided here. Please refer to that <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice for the description of the specific activity. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments and Responses</HD> NMFS published a notice of its proposal to issue an IHA to Transco in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on August 7, 2025 (90 FR 38104). That notice described, in detail, Transco's specified activities, the marine mammal species that may be affected by the activities, and the anticipated effects on marine mammals. In that notice, we requested public input on the request for authorization described therein, our analyses, the proposed authorization, and any other aspect of the notice of the proposed IHA, and requested that interested persons submit relevant information, suggestions, and comments. During the 30-day public comment period, NMFS received a total of five substantive comment letters. Letters were received from one state agency (New York State Department of Environmental Conservation), three environmental non-governmental organizations (Clean Ocean Action, New Yorkers for Clean Power, Protect Our Coast New Jersey), and from the “WhoPoo App” entity. Summaries of all relevant, substantive comments and NMFS' responses to these comments are provided below. We have not responded to comments that failed to raise a significant point for us to consider ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> comments that are out of scope of the proposed IHA; mitigation, monitoring, or reporting measures already included in the proposed IHA). Furthermore, if a comment received was unclear, NMFS does not include it here as it could not determine whether it raised a significant point for NMFS to consider. The comments are available online at: <E T="03">https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/marine-mammal-protection/incidental-take-authorizations-construction-activities.</E> Please see the comment submissions for full details regarding the recommendations and supporting rationale. <E T="03">Comment 1:</E> Commenters expressed concern regarding NMFS' proposed application of a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Categorical Exclusion (CatEx). Commenters stated that use of the CatEx is inappropriate given what one commentator characterizes as “the uncertainty and uniqueness of the impacts” related to contaminants that the commenter asserts would be released by the project or what a different commenter describes as the “potential for serious acoustic disturbance to sensitive marine mammals,” and recommended that further NEPA analysis be conducted. <E T="03">Response:</E> In determining whether a CatEx is appropriately applied for a given Incidental Take Authorization (ITA), NMFS considers the applicant's specified activity, in this case, in-water construction (pile driving), and the potential extent and magnitude of the effects of NMFS' action ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> the authorized “takes” of marine mammals and prescribed mitigation, monitoring and reporting requirements) along with the extraordinary circumstances listed in the Companion Manual for NOAA Administrative Order 216-6A. The evaluation of whether extraordinary circumstances (if present) have the potential for significant environmental effects is limited to the decision NMFS is responsible for, which is issuance of an ITA (NMFS' action). NMFS has prepared numerous Environmental Assessments (EAs) analyzing the environmental impacts of authorizing take of marine mammals incidental to construction activities such as these, which resulted in Findings of No Significant Impact. NMFS has performed the necessary analysis and c ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 138k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━