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[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 240 (Friday, December 13, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 100982-100984]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2024-29416]

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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

[RTID 0648-XE490]

Taking and Importing Marine Mammals; Taking Marine Mammals 
Incidental to Military Readiness Activities in the Hawaii-California 
Training and Testing Study Area

AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce.

ACTION: Notice; receipt of application for regulations and letters of 
authorization; request for comments and information.

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SUMMARY: NMFS has received a request from the U.S. Department of the 
Navy (including the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps (Navy)) and on 
behalf of the U.S. Coast Guard (Coast Guard) and U.S. Army (Army; 
hereafter, Navy, Coast Guard, and Army are collectively referred to as 
Action Proponents) for authorization to take marine mammals incidental 
to training, testing, and modernization and sustainment of ranges 
conducted in the Hawaii-California Training and Testing (HCTT)

[[Page 100983]]

Study Area over the course of 7 years from December 2025 through 
December 2032. Pursuant to regulations implementing the Marine Mammal 
Protection Act (MMPA), NMFS is announcing receipt of the Action 
Proponents' request for the development and implementation of 
regulations governing the incidental taking of marine mammals and 
issuance of four 7-year Letters of Authorization (LOAs). NMFS invites 
the public to provide information, suggestions, and comments on the 
Action Proponents' application and request.

DATES: Comments and information must be received no later than January 
13, 2025.

ADDRESSES: Comments should be addressed to Jolie Harrison, Chief, 
Permits and Conservation Division, Office of Protected Resources, 
National Marine Fisheries Service, and should be submitted via email to 
[email protected]. An electronic copy of the Action Proponents' 
application may be obtained online at: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/marine-mammal-protection/incidental-take-authorizations-military-readiness-activities. In case of problems accessing the 
document, please call the contact listed below.
    Instructions: 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 be generally posted online at: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/marine-mammal-protection/incidental-take-authorizations-military-readiness-activities without change. All 
personal identifying information (e.g., name, address) voluntarily 
submitted by the commenter may be publicly accessible. Do not submit 
confidential business information or otherwise sensitive or protected 
information.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Leah Davis, Office of Protected 
Resources, NMFS, (301) 427-8401.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

    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 
et seq.) 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 authorization 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), 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.
    NMFS has defined ``negligible impact'' in 50 CFR 216.103 as an 
impact resulting from the specified activity that cannot be reasonably 
expected to, and is not reasonably likely to, adversely affect the 
species or stock through effects on annual rates of recruitment or 
survival.
    The MMPA states that the term ``take'' means to harass, hunt, 
capture, kill or attempt to harass, hunt, capture, or kill any marine 
mammal.
    The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2004 
(Pub. L. 108-136) amended section 101(a)(5) of the MMPA to remove the 
``small numbers'' and ``specified geographical region'' provisions and 
amended the definition of ``harassment'' as applied to a ``military 
readiness activity'' to read as follows (section 3(18)(B) of the MMPA): 
(i) Any act that injures or has the significant potential to injure a 
marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild (Level A Harassment); 
or (ii) Any act that disturbs or is likely to disturb a marine mammal 
or marine mammal stock in the wild by causing disruption of natural 
behavioral patterns, including, but not limited to, migration, 
surfacing, nursing, breeding, feeding, or sheltering, to a point where 
such behavioral patterns are abandoned or significantly altered (Level 
B Harassment). On August 13, 2018, the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2019 (Pub. 
L. 115-232) amended the MMPA to allow incidental take regulations for 
military readiness activities to be issued for up to 7 years.

Summary of Request

    On September 16, 2024, NMFS received an application from the Action 
Proponents requesting authorization to take marine mammals, by Level A 
and Level B harassment, incidental to training, testing, and 
modernization and sustainment of ranges (all characterized as military 
readiness activities) including the use of sonar and other transducers, 
in-air detonations, in-water detonations, air guns, and impact and 
vibratory pile driving and extraction in the HCTT Study Area. In 
addition, the Action Proponents are requesting authorization of 146 
takes by mortality of 11 marine mammal species from explosives during 
Navy training exercises, 27 takes by mortality of 7 marine mammal 
species from explosives (including ship shock trials) during Navy 
testing activities, and 9 takes of large whales by serious injury or 
mortality from vessel strikes over the 7-year period of the LOAs: 5 
takes incidental to the Navy's training and testing activities, and 4 
takes incidental to the Coast Guard's training activities. In response 
to our comments and following information exchange, the Action 
Proponents submitted a final revised application that we determined was 
adequate and complete on December 12, 2024. The Action Proponents 
requested the regulations and subsequent LOAs be valid for 7 years 
beginning in December 2025.
    This will be the fourth time NMFS has promulgated incidental take 
regulations pursuant to the MMPA relating to similar military readiness 
activities in HCTT, following those effective from January 5, 2009, 
through January 5, 2014, (74 FR 1456, January 12, 2009), from December 
24, 2013, through December 24, 2018 (78 FR 78106, December 24, 2013), 
and from December 21, 2018, through December 20, 2023 (83 FR 66846, 
December 27, 2018), which was subsequently extended until December 20, 
2025 (85 FR 41780, July 10, 2020) due to amendments to the NDAA (Pub. 
L. 115-232).

Description of the Specified Activity

    The HCTT Study Area includes areas in the north-central Pacific 
Ocean, from California west to Hawaii and the International Date Line, 
and including the Hawaii Range Complex (HRC), Southern California 
(SOCAL) Range Complex, Point Mugu Sea Range (PMSR), Silver Strand 
Training Complex, and the Northern California (NOCAL) Range Complex. 
The HRC encompasses ocean areas around the Hawaiian Islands, extending 
from 16

[[Page 100984]]

degrees north latitude to 43 degrees north latitude and from 150 
degrees west longitude to the International Date Line. The SOCAL Range 
Complex is located approximately between Dana Point, California and San 
Antonio, Mexico, and extends southwest into the Pacific Ocean. The PMSR 
is located adjacent to Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, and San 
Luis Obispo Counties along the Pacific Coast of Southern California. 
The Silver Strand Training Complex is an integrated set of training 
areas located on and adjacent to the Silver Strand, a narrow, sandy 
isthmus separating the San Diego Bay from the Pacific Ocean. The NOCAL 
Range Complex consists of two separate areas located offshore of 
central and northern California, one northwest of San Francisco and the 
other southwest of Monterey Bay. Please refer to figure 1-1 of the 
application for a map of the HCTT Study Area, figure 2-1 through figure 
2-6 for additional maps of the Hawaii Study Area and figure 2-7 through 
figure 2-17 for additional maps of the California Study Area.
    The following types of training and testing, which are classified 
as military readiness activities pursuant to the section 315(f) of 
Public Law 101-314 (16 U.S.C. 703), are included in the specified 
activity described in the Action Proponents application:
     Amphibious warfare (in-water detonations);
     Anti-submarine warfare (sonar and other transducers, in-
water detonations);
     Expeditionary warfare (in-water detonations, pile driving/
extraction);
     Mine warfare (sonar and other transducers, in-water 
detonations);
     Surface warfare (in-water detonations); and
     Other (sonar and other transducers, air guns, vessel 
movement, missile and target launch noise from locations on San Nicolas 
Island, missile and aerial target launch noise from the Pacific Missile 
Range Facility (PMRF), artillery firing noise from shore to surface 
gunnery at PMRF).
    The application includes proposed mitigation measures for marine 
mammals that would be implemented during training and testing 
activities in the HCTT Study Area (see section 11 of the application). 
Proposed procedural mitigation generally involves: (1) the use of one 
or more trained Lookouts to diligently observe for specific biological 
resources within a mitigation zone, (2) requirements for Lookouts to 
immediately communicate sightings of specific biological resources to 
the appropriate watch station for information dissemination, and (3) 
requirements for the watch station to implement mitigation (e.g., halt 
an activity) until certain recommencement conditions have been met. 
Mitigation measures are also proposed for specific mitigation areas and 
consist of a variety of measures including, but not limited to: 
conducting a certain number of major training exercises per year, not 
planning or avoid planning major training exercises, minimizing or not 
conducting active sonar, conducting a limited amount of hull-mounted 
mid-frequency active sonar per year, not expending explosive or non-
explosive ordnance, and implementing vessel speed reductions in certain 
circumstances.
    The Action Proponents also propose to undertake monitoring and 
reporting efforts to better understand the impacts of their activities 
on marine mammals and their habitat, track compliance with take 
authorizations, and to help investigate the effectiveness of 
implemented mitigation measures in the HCTT Study Area.

Information Solicited

    Interested persons may submit information, suggestions, and 
comments concerning the Action Proponents' request (see ADDRESSES). 
NMFS will consider all information, suggestions, and comments related 
to the request during the development of proposed regulations governing 
the incidental taking of marine mammals by the Action Proponents, if 
appropriate.

    Dated: December 10, 2024.
Kimberly Damon-Randall,
Director, Office of Protected Resources, National Marine Fisheries 
Service.
[FR Doc. 2024-29416 Filed 12-12-24; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-22-P
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