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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 21 / Wednesday, February 3, 2021 / Notices
In accordance with the regulations implementing the Marine Mammal Protection Act MMPA as amended, notification is hereby given that NMFS has issued an incidental harassment authorization IHA to the U.S. Navy Navy to incidentally harass, by Level B harassment only, marine mammals during activities associated with the Naval Base San Diego Pier 6
Replacement Project in San Diego, California.

SUMMARY:

This Authorization is effective from October 1, 2021 through September 30, 2022.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Dwayne Meadows, Ph.D., Office of Protected Resources, NMFS, 301 427
8401. 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: https
www.fisheries.noaa.gov/permit/
incidental-take-authorizations-undermarine-mammal-protection-act. In case of problems accessing these documents, please call the contact listed above.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
DATES:

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Background The MMPA prohibits the take of marine mammals, with certain exceptions. Sections 101a5A 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 issued or, if the taking is limited to harassment, a notice of a proposed incidental take authorization may be 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 stocks and will not have an unmitigable adverse impact on the availability of the species or stocks 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
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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.
Summary of Request On July 14, 2020, NMFS received an application from the Navy requesting an IHA to take small numbers of California sea lions incidental to pile driving and removal associated with the Naval Base San Diego Pier 6 Replacement Project.
The application was deemed adequate and complete on November 25, 2020.
The Navys request is for take of a small number of California sea lions by Level B harassment. Neither the Navy nor NMFS expects serious injury or mortality to result from this activity and, therefore, an IHA is appropriate.
Description of Proposed Activity Overview The purpose of the project is to remove and replace a decaying and inadequate pier for Navy ships.
Specifically, in-water construction work includes removing the existing pier by vibratory pile extraction, water jetting, hydraulic underwater chainsaw, direct pulling, and/or pile clippers consisting of a total of 1,998 12 to 24-inch piles, after removing above water structures and utilities. Once demolition has opened up space, construction will begin in the same location on a new pier measuring 37 meters m 120 feet ft wide by 457 m 1,500 ft long. New construction work involves impact driving of 966 piles. This includes 528
24-inch structural concrete piles, 208
24-inch concrete fender piles, 4 20-inch piles for a load-out ramp, and 226 16inch fiberglass secondary and corner fender piles. Pile driving/removal is expected to take no more than 250 days.
Pile driving would be by vibratory pile driving until resistance is too great and driving would switch to an impact hammer.
A detailed description of the planned project is provided in the Federal Register notice for the proposed IHA 85
FR 80027; December 11, 2020. Since that time, no changes have been made to the planned activities. Therefore, a detailed description is not provided here. Please refer to that Federal Register notice for the description of the specific activity.
Comments and Response A notice of NMFSs proposal to issue an IHA to the Navy was published in the Federal Register on December 11,
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2020 85 FR 80027. 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 no public comment or comment letter from the Marine Mammal Commission.
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/marinemammal-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 species with expected potential for occurrence in the project area in San Diego Bay and summarizes information related to the population or stock, including regulatory status under the MMPA and Endangered Species Act ESA and potential biological removal PBR, where known. For taxonomy, we follow Committee on Taxonomy 2020.
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. 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.
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 U.S. Pacific SARs e.g., Caretta et al., 2020.

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