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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 118 / Wednesday, June 23, 2021 / Rules and Regulations environmental impact statement DEIS
to evaluate alternatives related to the proposed designation of WSCNMS
under the NMSA. That announcement initiated a 90-day public comment period during which NOAA solicited additional input related to the scale and scope of the proposed sanctuary, including ideas presented in the community nomination. The NOI also announced NOAAs intent to fulfill its responsibilities under the requirements of the National Historic Preservation Act NHPA.
In November 2015, NOAA hosted three public meetings and provided additional opportunities for public comments through the www.regulations.gov web portal and by traditional mail. The comment period closed January 15, 2016. All comments received, through any of these formats, were publicly posted on the www.regulations.gov web portal see:
https www.regulations.gov/
docket?D=NOAA-NOS-2015-0112. The public comments submitted during the scoping process were used by NOAA in preparing the proposed sanctuary regulations and the draft environmental impact statement and draft management plan DEIS/DMP associated with the proposed sanctuary designation.

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2. Designation Process On January 9, 2017, NOAA published a notice in the Federal Register announcing the proposed designation of approximately 1,075 square miles of waters and submerged lands of Lake Michigan adjacent to Manitowoc, Sheboygan, and Ozaukee counties in the State of Wisconsin. 82 FR 2269. NOAA
also provided public notice of the availability of the related DEIS/DMP 82
FR 2269; 82 FR 1733. All three documents proposed rule, DEIS, and DMP were prepared in close consultation with the State of Wisconsin. NOAA opened an 81-day comment period on the proposed rule and the DEIS/DMP, which closed on March 31, 2017. During the public comment period, NOAA held four public meetings in the Wisconsin cities of Algoma, Manitowoc, Sheboygan, and Port Washington.
All public comments on the proposed designation are available at https
www.regulations.gov/docket?D=NOAANOS-2016-0150. NOAAs response to the public comments are included in Appendix B of the FEIS, which was made available on June 5, 2020 85 FR
34625 and in this document Section IV.

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II. Changes From Proposed to Final Regulations
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Based on public comments received between January and March 2017, internal deliberations, interagency consultations, meetings with constituent groups, and evaluation of this input with the State of Wisconsin, NOAA has made the following changes to the proposed rule. NOAA has also made conforming changes to the FEIS/FMP.

C. Definition of Sanctuary Resource and Shipwreck Site In response to public comments, NOAA revises the definitions of sanctuary resource and shipwreck site for clarity. In the proposed rule, NOAA defined sanctuary resource as prehistoric, historic, archaeological, and cultural sites and artifacts within the sanctuary boundary, including but not limited to, all shipwrecks and related components. With this final rule, NOAA deletes including but not limited to, all shipwrecks and related components and replaces it with including all shipwreck sites, thus revising the site-specific definition of sanctuary resources, located in section 922.211a1, to now mean all prehistoric, historic, archaeological, and cultural sites and artifacts within the sanctuary boundary, including all shipwreck sites. NOAA made this revision to clarify this sanctuarys emphasis on the protection of shipwrecks and shipwreck sites, and to better align with state definitions.
Additionally, the proposed rule broadly defined shipwreck site to mean any sunken watercraft, its components, cargo, contents, and associated debris field section 922.211a2. However, with this final rule, NOAA revises the definition in section 922.211a2 for shipwreck site by adding historic to clarify that NOAA is focused on historic shipwrecks i.e., not all shipwrecks, but those that demonstrate an important role in or relationship with maritime history. This addition is specifically added to respond to concerns about defining recent or contemporary sunken craft or objects as sanctuary resources.
For the purposes of this rule, historic takes its definition from historical resource located in section 922.3 of the National Marine Sanctuary Program regulations.

A. Sanctuary Boundary In response to public comments and discussions with the state, NOAA chose to modify the sanctuary boundary area from 1,075 square miles, as originally proposed, to 962 square miles. This new boundary includes 36 known shipwrecks and the potential for approximately 59 new sites to be discovered. Specific changes include:
1 In response to comments raised by the commercial shipping industry, excluding all federally authorized areas navigation channels from the sanctuary; 2 in response to comments raised by shoreline property owners and certain industry groups and in consultation with the State of Wisconsin, using the Low Water Datum rather than the Ordinary High Water Mark as the sanctuarys western/
shoreline boundary; 3 in consultation with the State of Wisconsin, moving the southern sanctuary boundary northward to approximately 650 feet south of the shipwreck Northerner, putting the boundary closer to the nominating community of Port Washington and using a known shipwreck site to demarcate the sanctuary boundary, rather than a political boundary i.e., a county or city line; and 4 in response to public comments, moving the northern boundary approximately 1.7
miles northward to include the shipwreck America in Kewaunee County. A detailed description of these boundary modifications can be found in Chapter 3 of the FEIS. NOAAs response to these and other public comments can be found in Appendix B of the FEIS and in this document Section IV.
B. Sanctuary Name In the proposed rule, NOAA referred to the proposed sanctuary as the Wisconsin-Lake Michigan National Marine Sanctuary WLMNMS.
However, based on comments received from the public and community partners, NOAA changes the sanctuary name with this final rule to Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary WSCNMS, which better describes the purpose of the sanctuary, and, as indicated by local communities,
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D. Effective Date of the Regulations on Grappling Into or Anchoring on Shipwreck Sites As explained above in the DATES
section of this document, NOAA
postpones the effective date for the regulation that prohibits grappling into or anchoring on shipwreck sites until October 1, 2023. The purpose of this postponement is to provide NOAA with adequate time to develop a shipwreck mooring program and plan, begin installing mooring buoys, seek input from the dive community about the mooring buoy plan, and develop best practices for accessing shipwrecks when
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