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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 167 / Wednesday, September 1, 2021 / Notices mitigation; and requirements pertaining to the mitigation, monitoring and reporting of the takings are set forth.
The definitions of all applicable MMPA statutory terms cited above are included in the relevant sections below.

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Summary of Request On February 3, 2021, NMFS received a request from United States Navy Navy for an IHA to take marine mammals incidental to pile driving/
removal activities at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego Bay, California. The application was deemed adequate and complete on May 17, 2021. The Navys request is for take of a small number of six species of marine mammals by Level B harassment only. Neither the Navy nor NMFS expects serious injury or mortality to result from this activity and, therefore, an IHA is appropriate.
Naval Base Point Loma provides berthing and support services for Navy submarines and other fleet assets. The existing fuel pier previously served as a fuel depot for loading and unloading fuel. Naval Base Point Loma is the only active Navy fueling facility in southern California. The current project is to remove piles that were part of the old pier that was replaced over the past few years. This IHA includes up to 84 days of in-water pile driving/removal activities.
NMFS has previously issued incidental take authorizations to the Navy for similar activities over the past 8 years at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego Bay, including IHAs issued effective from September 1, 2013, through August 31, 2014 78 FR 44539, July 24, 2013; Year 1 Project, October 8, 2014 through October 7, 2015 79 FR
65378, November 4, 2014; Year 2
Project, October 8, 2015 through October 7, 2016 80 FR 62032, October 15, 2015; Year 3 Project, October 8, 2016 through October 7, 2017 81 FR
66628, September 28, 2016; Year 4
Project, October 8, 2017 through October 7, 2018 82 FR 45811, October 2, 2017; Year 5 Project, September 15, 2020 through September 14, 2021 85
FR 33129, June 1, 2020; Floating Dry Dock Project, and October 1, 2021
through September 30, 2022 86 FR
7993, February 3, 2021; Pier 6
Replacement Project. The Navy has complied with all the requirements e.g., mitigation, monitoring, and reporting of past IHAs. Monitoring reports from these activities are available on NMFS
website https
www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/
marine-mammal-protection/incidental-

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Description of the Specified Activity Overview The purpose of this project is to remove old piles from the Fuel Pier at Naval Base Point Loma to allow for continued Naval Fleet readiness activities. More specifically, the inwater construction work includes the removal of 409 piles by a variety of techniques i.e., one to two pile clippers, an underwater chainsaw, a diamond wire saw, or a vibratory hammer, possibly with assistance from a diver.
Concurrent pile removal may occur for some piles by using only two pile clippers. The piles include an estimated 12 13-inch diameter polycarbonate fender piles, 56 14-inch diameter concrete fender piles, and 341 16-inch diameter concrete structural piles.
A detailed description of the planned project is provided in the Federal Register notice for the proposed IHA 86
FR 38274; July 20, 2021. Since that time, no changes have been made to the planned pile removal activities.
Therefore, a detailed description is not provided here. Please refer to that Federal Register notice for the description of the specific activity.
Mitigation, monitoring, and reporting measures are described in detail later in this document please see Mitigation and the Monitoring and Reporting sections.
Comments and Responses A notice of NMFS proposal to issue an IHA to the Navy was published in the Federal Register on July 20, 2021
86 FR 38274. That notice described, in detail, the Navys activity, the marine mammal species that may be affected by the activity, and the anticipated effects on marine mammals. During the 30-day public comment period, NMFS received public comments from one commenter.
The United States Geological Survey noted that they have no comment at this time.
Description of Marine Mammals in the Area of Specified Activities Sections 3 and 4 of the application summarize available information regarding status and trends, distribution and habitat preferences, and behavior and life history, of the potentially affected species. Additional information regarding population trends and threats may be found in NMFSs Stock Assessment Reports SARs; https
www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/
marine-mammal-protection/marine-

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mammal-stock-assessments and more general information about these species e.g., physical and behavioral descriptions may be found on NMFSs website https
www.fisheries.noaa.gov/find-species.
Table 1 lists all marine mammal species with expected potential for occurrence in the vicinity of Naval Base Point Loma during the project timeframe and summarizes key information, including regulatory status under the MMPA and Endangered Species Act ESA and potential biological removal PBR, where known.
PBR is defined by the MMPA as the maximum number of animals, not including natural mortalities, that may be removed from a marine mammal stock while allowing that stock to reach or maintain its optimum sustainable population as described in NMFSs SARs; https www.fisheries.noaa.gov/
national/marine-mammal-protection/
marine-mammal-stock-assessments.
While no mortality is anticipated or authorized here, PBR and annual serious injury and mortality from anthropogenic sources are included here as gross indicators of the status of the species and other threats. For taxonomy, we followed the Society for Marine Mammalogys Committee on Taxonomy 2020.
Marine mammal abundance estimates presented in this document represent the total number of individuals that make up a given stock or the total number estimated within a particular study or survey area. NMFSs stock abundance estimates, for most species, represent the total estimate of individuals within the geographic area, if known, that comprises that stock. For some species, this geographic area may extend beyond U.S. waters. All managed stocks in this region are assessed in NMFSs 2019 Pacific SARs Carretta et al., 2020a and recently finalized 2020
U.S. Pacific SARs Carretta et al., 2020b. Upon the finalizing of the 2020
SARs, none of the stock information for the species that are expected to occur in the project area for this project has changed. All values presented in Table 1 are the most recent available at the time of publication and are available in the 2019 Pacific SARs and 2020 Pacific SARs available online at: https
www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/
marine-mammal-protection/marinemammal-stock-assessment-reports.

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