Notice2022-03887
Notice of Availability of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Alabama Trustee Implementation Group Draft Swift Tract Living Shoreline Supplemental Environmental Assessment
Primary source
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Published
February 24, 2022
Issuing agencies
Commerce DepartmentNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Abstract
In accordance with the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA), the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and a Consent Decree with BP Exploration & Production Inc. (BP), the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) Federal natural resource trustee agencies for the Alabama Trustee Implementation Group (Alabama TIG) have prepared a Draft Swift Tract Living Shoreline Supplemental Environmental Assessment (Draft Supplemental EA). This Draft Supplemental EA evaluates the proposed removal of rocks from the bay bottom near the Swift Tract project action area and the placement of the removed rocks on a nearby breakwater. The proposed action falls within the general scope of the purpose and need for the original project, Swift Tract Living Shoreline, identified in the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Programmatic and Phase III Early Restoration Plan and Early Restoration Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (Phase III ERP/PEIS) and is consistent with the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Final Programmatic Damage Assessment and Restoration Plan and Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PDARP/PEIS), as it focuses on the restoration of injuries to Alabama's natural resources and services--in particular to Restoration Type: "Wetlands, Coastal, and Nearshore Habitats," using funds made available in early restoration and through the DWH Consent Decree (see Final PDARP/PEIS [DWH Trustees 2016: Chapter 10]). The Alabama TIG evaluated the environmental consequences of the alternatives in accordance with NEPA. The purpose of this notice is to inform the public of the availability of the Draft Supplemental EA and to seek public comments on the document.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 87 Issue 37 (Thursday, February 24, 2022)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 87, Number 37 (Thursday, February 24, 2022)]
[Notices]
[Pages 10339-10341]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2022-03887]
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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
[RTID 0648-XB804]
Notice of Availability of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Alabama
Trustee Implementation Group Draft Swift Tract Living Shoreline
Supplemental Environmental Assessment
AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce.
ACTION: Notice of availability; request for comments.
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SUMMARY: In accordance with the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA), the
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and a Consent Decree with BP
Exploration & Production Inc. (BP), the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) Federal
natural resource trustee agencies for the Alabama Trustee
Implementation Group (Alabama TIG) have prepared a Draft Swift Tract
Living Shoreline Supplemental Environmental Assessment (Draft
Supplemental EA). This Draft Supplemental EA evaluates the proposed
removal of rocks from the bay bottom near the Swift Tract project
action area and the placement of the removed rocks on a nearby
breakwater. The proposed action falls within the general scope of the
purpose and need for the original project, Swift Tract Living
Shoreline, identified in the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Programmatic
and Phase III Early Restoration Plan and Early Restoration Programmatic
Environmental Impact Statement (Phase III ERP/PEIS) and is consistent
with the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Final Programmatic Damage
Assessment and Restoration Plan and Final Programmatic Environmental
Impact Statement (PDARP/PEIS), as it focuses on the restoration of
injuries to Alabama's natural resources and services--in particular to
Restoration Type: ``Wetlands, Coastal, and Nearshore Habitats,'' using
funds made available in early restoration and through the DWH Consent
Decree (see Final PDARP/PEIS [DWH Trustees 2016: Chapter 10]). The
Alabama TIG evaluated the environmental consequences of the
alternatives in accordance with NEPA. The purpose of this notice is to
inform the public of the availability of the Draft Supplemental EA and
to seek public comments on the document.
DATES: The Alabama TIG will consider public comments received on or
before March 28, 2022.
ADDRESSES: Obtaining Documents: You may access the Draft Supplemental
EA from the ``News'' section of the Alabama TIG website at: <a href="http://www.gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov/restoration-areas/alabama">http://www.gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov/restoration-areas/alabama</a>.
Alternatively, you may request a CD of the Draft Supplemental EA (see
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT below).
Submitting Comments: You may submit comments on the Draft
Supplemental EA by one of the following methods:
<bullet> Via the Web: <a href="http://www.gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov/restoration-areas/alabama">http://www.gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov/restoration-areas/alabama</a>;
<bullet> Via U.S. Mail: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, P.O. Box
29649, Atlanta, GA 30345. Please note that mailed comments must be
postmarked on or before the comment deadline given in DATES.
Before including your address, phone number, email address, or
other personal identifying information in your comment, you should be
aware that your entire comment--including your personal identifying
information--may be made publicly available at any time. While you can
ask us in your comment to withhold your personal identifying
information from public review, we cannot guarantee that we will be
able to do so.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Stella Wilson, NOAA Restoration
Center, 850-332-4169, <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#42273136272e2e276c352b2e312d2c022c2d23236c252d34"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="45203631202929206b322c29362a2b052b2a24246b222a33">[email protected]</span></a>.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Introduction
On April 20, 2010, the mobile offshore drilling unit Deepwater
Horizon, which was being used to drill a well for BP Exploration and
Production, Inc. (BP), in the Macondo prospect (Mississippi Canyon 252-
MC252), experienced a significant explosion, fire, and subsequent
sinking in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in an unprecedented volume of
oil and other discharges from the rig and from the wellhead on the
seabed. The DWH oil spill is the largest off shore oil spill in U.S.
history, discharging millions of barrels of oil over a period of 87
days. In addition, well over one million gallons of dispersants were
applied to the waters of the spill area in an attempt to disperse the
spilled oil. An undetermined amount of natural gas was also released
into the environment as a result of the spill.
The DWH Federal and State natural resource trustees (DWH Trustees)
conducted the natural resource damage assessment for the DWH oil spill
under OPA (OPA; 33 U.S.C. 2701 et seq.).
[[Page 10340]]
Pursuant to OPA, Federal and State agencies act as trustees on behalf
of the public to assess natural resource injuries and losses and to
determine the actions required to compensate the public for those
injuries and losses. OPA further instructs the designated trustees to
develop and implement a plan for the restoration, rehabilitation,
replacement, or acquisition of the equivalent of the injured natural
resources under their trusteeship, including the loss of use and
services from those resources from the time of injury until the time of
restoration to baseline (the resource quality and conditions that would
exist if the spill had not occurred) is complete.
The DWH Trustees are:
<bullet> U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), as represented by
the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau
of Land Management;
<bullet> National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), on
behalf of the U.S. Department of Commerce;
<bullet> U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA);
<bullet> U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA);
<bullet> State of Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration
Authority, Oil Spill Coordinator's Office, Department of Environmental
Quality, Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, and Department of
Natural Resources;
<bullet> State of Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality;
<bullet> State of Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural
Resources and Geological Survey of Alabama;
<bullet> State of Florida Department of Environmental Protection
and Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission; and
<bullet> State of Texas: Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Texas
General Land Office, and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
The Trustees reached and finalized a settlement of their natural
resource damage claims with BP in an April 4, 2016, Consent Decree
approved by the United States District Court for the Eastern District
of Louisiana. Pursuant to that Consent Decree, restoration projects in
the Alabama Restoration Area are now selected and implemented by the
Alabama TIG.
Background
The Alabama Swift Tract Living Shoreline project (hereafter ``the
project'') was selected in the Final Programmatic and Phase III Early
Restoration Plan and Early Restoration Programmatic Environmental
Impact Statement (Phase III ERP/PEIS). NOAA is the lead implementing
Trustee for the project. The original Swift Tract project is located in
the eastern portion of Bon Secour Bay (part of Mobile Bay)
approximately 6 miles northwest of Gulf Shores in Baldwin County,
Alabama. Construction was completed in February 2017 and 7 years of
post-construction performance monitoring is ongoing. The project
created approximately 1.75 miles (2.8 kilometers) of breakwaters in Bon
Secour Bay to dampen wave energy and reduce shoreline erosion, while
also providing habitat and increasing benthic secondary productivity.
The project is adjacent to the Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research
Reserve (NERR) and within the NERR buffer area.
Following construction completion, NOAA project team members were
notified that there may be rocks located in Bon Secour Bay the project
site, but outside the footprint of the breakwater. Thus, in March 2018,
NOAA, through its contractor, collected sidescan sonar acoustic
imaging, magnetometer, and single beam bathymetry surveys of the water
bottom adjacent to the breakwaters to determine the location of any
potential rock piles near the breakwater construction area. The results
indicate that there are several hard surface contacts, likely rock
piles, within the survey area. Recommendations from a corrective action
report include either removing the material or leaving the material in-
place as reef habitat. Both alternatives are evaluated in this Draft
Supplemental EA.
Overview of the Alabama TIG Draft Supplemental EA
As described in Section III of this Draft Supplemental EA (the
``OPA Summary''), the Alabama TIG has determined that the proposed
corrective action does not alter its original conclusions for the Swift
Tract project under OPA and its implementing regulations. Thus, the
Alabama TIG concludes that implementation of the corrective action
proposed in this Supplemental EA does not require further OPA
evaluation, and this Supplemental EA focuses its analysis on the
potential environmental impacts of the proposed corrective action under
NEPA.
This Supplemental EA provides NEPA analysis for the Swift Tract
proposed corrective action by supplementing the NEPA analysis for the
Phase III ERP/PEIS. The supplemental NEPA analysis provided in this
Swift Tract Supplemental EA augments and incorporates by reference the
applicable sections (Chapter 11, Affected Environment, Environmental
Consequences for the Swift Tract Restoration Project) of the Phase III
ERP/PEIS. This supplemental analysis considers any additional
environmental impacts that would result from implementation of the
corrective action that are not described and analyzed in the Phase III
ERP/PEIS.
The Draft Supplemental EA evaluates the proposed removal of rocks
from the bay bottom near the Swift Tract project action area and the
placement of the removed rocks on a nearby breakwater.
The proposed rock removal and breakwater placement locations are
adjacent to, but outside of, the project action area identified in the
Final Phase III ERP/PEIS. Due to the close proximity of the new removal
and placement areas to the existing Swift Tract breakwater, the
Affected Environment for the proposed removal and placement areas would
be the same as that evaluated for the Swift Tract breakwater in the
Phase III ERP/PEIS. The environmental consequences of the proposed
corrective action are also anticipated to fall generally within the
scope of the environmental consequences evaluated for the original
project. Therefore, the Environmental Consequences reviewed in the
Swift Tract project evaluation, in Chapter 11, Section 11.4 of the
Final Phase III ERP/PEIS, are reviewed in the Supplemental EA to
evaluate the likely environmental consequences of the proposed
corrective action and the ``No Action'' alternatives to determine
whether implementation of the proposed corrective action may alter the
conclusions made in the Final Phase III ERP/PEIS. Under the ``No
Action'' alternative, the rocks currently located on the water bottom
would not be removed from the water bottom and would instead be left in
place.
Next Steps
The public is encouraged to review and comment on the Draft
Supplemental EA. After the public comment period ends, the Alabama TIG
will consider and address comments received before issuing a Final
Supplemental EA. A summary of comments received and the Alabama TIG's
responses and any revisions to the document, as appropriate, will be
included in the final document.
Administrative Record
The documents comprising the Administrative Record for the Draft
Supplemental EA can be viewed electronically at <a href="http://www.doi.gov/deepwaterhorizon/adminrecord">http://www.doi.gov/deepwaterhorizon/adminrecord</a>.
[[Page 10341]]
Authority
The authority of this action is the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (33
U.S.C. 2701 et seq.) and its implementing Oil Pollution Act Natural
Resource Damage Assessment regulations found at 15 CFR part 990 and the
National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.).
Dated: February 17, 2022.
Carrie Diane Robinson,
Director, Office of Habitat Conservation, National Marine Fisheries
Service.
[FR Doc. 2022-03887 Filed 2-23-22; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-22-P
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