Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Newark Bay, Between the City of Newark and City of Bayonne, NJ

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>Coast Guard</SUBAGY> <CFR>33 CFR Part 117</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. USCG-2025-0805]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1625-AA09</RIN> <SUBJECT>Drawbridge Operation Regulation; Newark Bay, Between the City of Newark and City of Bayonne, NJ</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Coast Guard, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Coast Guard proposes to modify the operating regulation that governs the Lehigh Valley Drawbridge across Newark Bay, mile 4.6, between the City of Newark and City of Bayonne, NJ. This proposed change in the regulation will not alter the operating schedule of the bridge but will allow the bridge to be remotely operated from the Conrail North Jersey Dispatch Center in Mount Laurel, NJ. 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 April 16, 2026. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by docket number USCG-2025-0805 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 below for 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 on this proposed rule, call or email Mr. Gregory P. Hitchen, Northeast Coast Guard District (dpb), the Coast Guard; telephone 571-607-8154, email <E T="03">Gregory.P.Hitchen@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">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 (Advance, Supplemental)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">§ Section </FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">U.S.C. United States Code</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background, Purpose and Legal Basis</HD> The Lehigh Valley Drawbridge across Newark Bay, between the City of Newark and City of Bayonne, NJ, mile 4.6, owned and operated by Conrail, has a vertical clearance of 35 feet above mean high water when closed and 135 feet above mean high water when open. The current operating schedule is published in 33 CFR 117.735 and will not change with the implementation of remote operation of the bridge. This proposed regulation will allow the bridge to be remotely operated from the Conrail North Jersey Dispatch Center in Mount Laurel, NJ. There are 28 daily train transits that cross the bridge and a daily average of four bridge openings for vessel transits. The bridge is normally maintained in the closed position due to the average daily number of trains crossing the bridge. Newark Bay is a major commercial waterway containing multiple waterfront facilities. However, most of these facilities are well south (downstream) of the Lehigh Valley Lift Bridge. The Coast Guard is proposing to allow remote operations to improve the efficiency of bridge openings. Currently the on-site bridge operator must consult with the Conrail train dispatcher in Mount Laurel NJ to obtain authorization to open the Lehigh Valley Drawbridge. This process causes delays in authorizing the opening of the bridge, which is a major causative factor in complaints the Coast Guard receives from mariners regarding delayed openings. Remote operations will facilitate direct communication between the mariner and the Conrail train dispatcher, who has much better situational awareness of the multimodal transportation picture. This modification will also allow the Arthur Kill Railroad Bridge and Hack Freight Railroad Bridge to be remotely operated from the Conrail North Jersey Dispatch Center in Mount Laurel, NJ, instead of being operated by the bridge tender at the Lehigh Valley Drawbridge. The operating schedules for the Arthur Kill Railroad Bridge and Hack Freight Railroad Bridge are published in 33 CFR 117.702 and 33 CFR 117.723, respectively. These regulations already authorize both bridges to be remotely operated, and their schedules will not change as a result of the implementation of remote operation of the Lehigh Valley Drawbridge. This NPRM is publishing simultaneously with a test deviation in the Rules section of this issue of the <E T="04">Federal Register,</E> under the same name and docket number. Both documents can be found at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> and comments can be made to either document. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Proposed Rule</HD> This proposed operating regulation will allow the Lehigh Valley Drawbridge to be operated remotely from the Conrail North Jersey Dispatch Center in Mount Laurel, NJ. The remote operations system includes eight camera views (four marine and four rail), marine radar, sonar, automated integration system (AIS) sensors, integration software, a dedicated phone line for bridge operations, radiotelephone on VHF-FM channels 13 and 16, and an AIS transmitter to provide bridge status (LEHIGH VALLEY BRG-OPEN, LEHIGH VALLEY BRG-CLOSED, and LEHIGH VALLEY BRG-INOP). The AIS transmitter will transmit the bridge status every two minutes and upon a change in bridge status. The remote operation system is designed to provide equal or greater capabilities compared to the on-site bridge tender, in visibility of the waterway and bridge, and in signals (communications) via sound and visual signals and radio telephone (voice) via VHF-FM channels 13 and 16. The remote operation system also incorporates real-time bridge status via AIS signal to aid mariners in voyage planning and navigational decision making, a dedicated telephone line (856) 231-2301 for bridge operations, and push-to-talk (PTT) capability on VHF-FM channels 13 and 16. Vessels that require an opening shall continue to request an opening via the methods (sound or visual signals or radio telephone (VHF-FM) voice communications) as defined in 33 CFR 117.15(b) through (d), via telephone at (856) 231-2301, or push-to-talk (PTT) on VHF-FM channel 13. Vessels may push the PTT button five times while on VHF-FM channel 13 and the North Jersey Dispatch Center will receive and respond to the request and commence opening of the bridge. The remote operation system will be considered failed and qualified personnel will return and operate the Lehigh Valley Drawbridge, Arthur Kill Railroad Bridge, Hack Freight Railroad Bridge within 60 minutes, if any of the following conditions are found: (1) The remote operation system becomes incapable of safely and effectively operating the bridge from the remote operation center, (2) visibility of the waterway or bridge is degraded to less than equal that of an on-site bridge tender (all eight camera views are required), (3) signals (communications) via sound or visual signals or radio telephone (voice) via VHF-FM channels 13 or 16 become inoperative, or (4) AIS becomes inoperative. <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 these statutes and Executive Orders. <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. 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 for the following reasons. (1) vessels will continue to transit the bridge per the operating schedule defined in 33 CFR 117.735, (2) the remote operation system is designed to provide equal or greater capabilities compared to the on-site bridge tender, and (3) the bridge owner will be capable of restoring on-site operation of the bridge within 60 minutes if the remote operation system fails. If you think that your business, organization, or governmental jurisdiction qualifies as a small entity and that this 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 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 contact 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">B. Collection of Information</HD> This proposed rule would call for no new collection of information under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501-3520.). <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. 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 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 18k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━