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jspears on DSK121TN23PROD with PROPOSALS1

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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 195 / Wednesday, October 13, 2021 / Proposed Rules
2 The Navy will follow mitigation procedures as described in this section.
In general, if poor environmental conditions restrict full visibility of the shutdown zone, pile driving activities would be delayed.
3 The Navy will ensure that construction supervisors and crews, the monitoring team, and relevant Navy staff are trained prior to the start of construction activity subject to this rule, so that responsibilities, communication procedures, monitoring protocols, and operational procedures are clearly understood. New personnel joining during the project will be trained prior to commencing work.
4 The Navy will avoid direct physical interaction with marine mammals during construction activity.
If a marine mammal comes within 10 m of such activity, operations will cease and vessels will reduce speed to the minimum level required to maintain steerage and safe working conditions, as necessary, to avoid direct physical interaction.
5 For all pile driving activity, the Navy must implement shutdown zones with radial distances as identified in a LOA issued under 216.106 of this chapter and 217.76. If a marine mammal comes within or approaches the shutdown zone, such operations must cease.
6 The Navy will use soft start techniques when impact pile driving.
Soft start requires contractors to provide an initial set of three strikes from the hammer at reduced energy, followed by a 30-second waiting period. Then two subsequent reduced-energy strike sets would occur. A soft start will be implemented at the start of each days impact pile driving and at any time following cessation of impact pile driving for a period of 30 minutes or longer. Soft start is not required during vibratory pile driving activities.
7 The Navy must deploy protected species observers observers as indicated in its Marine Mammal Monitoring Plan approved by NMFS.
8 For all pile driving activities, a minimum of two protected species observers observers must be stationed at the best vantage points practicable to monitor for marine mammals and implement shutdown/delay procedures.
However, additional monitors will be added if warranted by site conditions and/or the level of marine mammal activity in the area. Any activity that would result in threshold exceedance at or more than 1,000 m would require a minimum of three PSOs to effectively monitor the entire region of influence the full extent of potential underwater
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noise impact Level A and Level B
calculated harassment zones.
9 Monitoring must take place from 30 minutes prior to initiation of pile driving activity i.e., pre-start clearance monitoring through 30 minutes postcompletion of pile driving activity. Preactivity monitoring must be conducted for 30 minutes to ensure that the shutdown zone is clear of marine mammals, and pile driving may commence when observers have declared the shutdown zone clear of marine mammals. In the event of a delay or shutdown of activity resulting from marine mammals in the shutdown zone, animals must be allowed to remain in the shutdown zone i.e., must leave of their own volition and their behavior must be monitored and documented. If a marine mammal is observed within the shutdown zone, a soft-start cannot proceed until the animal has left the zone or has not been observed for 15
minutes. Monitoring must occur throughout the time required to drive a pile. If work ceases for more than 30
minutes, the pre-activity monitoring of the shutdown zones must commence. A
determination that the shutdown zone is clear must be made during a period of good visibility i.e., the entire shutdown zone and surrounding waters must be visible to the naked eye.
10 If a marine mammal approaches or enters the shutdown zone, all pile driving activities at that location must be halted. If pile driving is halted or delayed due to the presence of a marine mammal, the activity may not commence or resume until either the animal has voluntarily left and been visually confirmed beyond the shutdown zone or fifteen minutes have passed without re-detection of the animal.
11 Pile driving activity must be halted upon observation of either a species entering or within the harassment zone, for which incidental take is not authorized, or a species for which incidental take has been authorized but the authorized number of takes has been met.
12 Should environmental conditions deteriorate such that marine mammals within the entire shutdown zone would not be visible e.g., fog, heavy rain, the Navy must delay pile driving and pile removal until observers are confident marine mammals within the shutdown zone could be detected.
13 Monitoring must be conducted by trained observers, who must have no other assigned tasks during monitoring periods. Trained observers must be placed at the best vantage points practicable to monitor for marine mammals and implement shutdown or
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delay procedures when applicable through communication with the equipment operator. The Navy must adhere to the following additional observer qualifications:
i Independent observers are required;
ii At least one observer must have prior experience working as an observer;
iii Other observers may substitute education degree in biological science or related field or training for experience;
iv Where a team of three or more observers are required, one observer must be designated as lead observer or monitoring coordinator. The lead observer must have prior experience working as an observer; and v PSOs must be approved by NMFS
prior to beginning any activity subject to this proposed rule.
b Reserved 217.75 Requirements for monitoring and reporting.

a The Navy must submit a Marine Mammal Monitoring Plan to NMFS for approval in advance of construction.
b The Navy must deploy observers as indicated in its approved Marine Mammal Monitoring Plan.
c Observers must be trained in marine mammal identification and behaviors. Observers must have no other construction-related tasks while conducting monitoring.
d For all pile driving activities, a minimum of two observers must be stationed at the active pile driving site or in reasonable proximity in order to monitor the shutdown zone.
e The Navy must monitor the Level B harassment zones areas where SPLs are equal to or exceed the 160 dB rms threshold for impact driving and the 120
dB rms threshold during vibratory pile driving to the extent practicable and the shutdown zones. For those activities with larger Level A PTS onset harassment zones, the shutdown zone would be limited to 150 m from the point of noise generation to ensure adequate monitoring for each bulkhead section and the remaining area would be considered part of the disturbance zone.
The Navy must monitor the disturbance zone, which is the Level B harassment zone and, where present, the Level A
harassment zone PTS onset beyond 150 m from the point of noise generation. The Navy must monitor at least a portion of the Level B harassment zone on all pile driving days.
f The Navy must conduct hydroacoustic data collection sound source verification and propagation loss in accordance with a hydroacoustic monitoring plan that
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