[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 249 (Friday, December 27, 2013)]
[Notices]
[Pages 78822-78823]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2013-30951]
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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
RIN 0648-XC969
Draft Guidance for Assessing the Effects of Anthropogenic Sound
on Marine Mammals--Acoustic Threshold Levels for Onset of Permanent and
Temporary Threshold Shifts
AGENCY: National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce.
ACTION: Notice; request for comments.
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SUMMARY: The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) on behalf of NMFS
and the National Ocean Service (referred collectively here as the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)), announces the
availability of draft guidance for assessing the effects of
anthropogenic sound on marine mammal species under NOAA's jurisdiction.
The guidance provides updated received levels, or thresholds, above
which individual marine mammals are predicted to experience changes in
their hearing sensitivity (either temporary or permanent) for all
underwater anthropogenic sound sources. NOAA solicits public comment on
the draft guidance.
DATES: Comments must be received by January 27, 2014.
ADDRESSES: The draft guidance is available in electronic form via the
Internet at http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/acoustics/.
You may submit comments, identified by [NOAA-NMFS-2013-0177], by
any of the following methods:
Electronic Submissions: Submit all electronic public comments via
the Federal eRulemaking Portal http://www.regulations.gov.
Mail: Send comments to: Chief, Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle
Conservation Division, Office of Protected Resources, National Marine
Fisheries Service, 1315 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910-
3226, Attn: Acoustic Guidance.
Instructions: All comments received are a part of the public record
and will generally be posted to http://www.regulations.gov without
change. All Personal Identifying Information (for example, name,
address, etc.) voluntarily submitted by the commenter may be publicly
accessible. Do not submit Confidential Business Information or
otherwise sensitive or protected information.
NMFS will accept anonymous comments (enter N/A in the required
fields, if you wish to remain anonymous). You may submit attachments to
electronic comments in Microsoft Word, Excel, WordPerfect, or Adobe PDF
file formats only.
NMFS will hold a public meeting and webinar to inform interested
parties and solicit comments on the draft guidance document. The
meeting will be held on January 14, 2014, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. (EST)
at the NOAA Silver Spring Metro Center Complex, NOAA Science Center,
1301 East-West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 20910. This meeting is
accessible to people with disabilities. Requests for sign language
interpretation or other auxiliary aids should be directed to Amy
Scholik-Schlomer, (301) 427-8449 (voice), (301) 713-0376 (fax), or
[email protected] at least five days before the scheduled meeting
date. Information on how to register for the online webinar will be
posted on via the Internet at http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/acoustics/
after January 1, 2014.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Amy Scholik-Schlomer, Office of
Protected Resources, 301-427-8449, [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The National Marine Fisheries Service and
the National Ocean Service (referred collectively here as the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)), have developed draft
guidance for assessing the effects of anthropogenic sound on marine
mammal species under NOAA's jurisdiction. Specifically, the guidance
identifies the received levels, or thresholds, above which individual
marine mammals are predicted to experience changes in their hearing
sensitivity (either temporary or permanent) for all underwater
anthropogenic sound sources. This is the first time NOAA has presented
this information in a single, comprehensive document. This guidance is
intended to be used by NOAA analysts and managers and other relevant
user groups and stakeholders, including other federal agencies, when
seeking to determine whether and how their activities are expected to
result in particular types of impacts to marine mammals via acoustic
exposure. This document outlines NOAA's updated acoustic threshold
levels and describes in detail how the thresholds were developed and
how they will be updated in the future.
NOAA has compiled, interpreted, and synthesized the best available
science to produce updated acoustic threshold levels for the onset of
both temporary
[[Page 78823]]
(TTS) and permanent hearing threshold shifts (PTS). These thresholds
replace those currently in use by NOAA. Updates include a protocol for
estimating PTS and TTS onset levels for impulsive (e.g., airguns,
impact pile drivers) and non-impulsive (e.g., sonar, vibratory pile
drivers) sound sources, the formation of marine mammal functional
hearing groups (low-, mid-, and high-frequency cetaceans and otariid
and phocid pinnipeds), and the incorporation of marine mammal auditory
weighting functions into the calculation of thresholds. These acoustic
threshold levels are presented using the dual metrics of cumulative
sound exposure level and peak sound pressure level. This document
addresses how to combine multiple datasets, as well as how to determine
appropriate surrogates when data are not available. While the updated
acoustic thresholds are more complex than those previously used by
NOAA, they accurately reflect the current state of scientific knowledge
regarding the characteristics of sound that have the potential to
impact marine mammal hearing sensitivity. Given the specific nature of
these updates, it is not possible to compare directly the updated
acoustic threshold levels presented in this document with the
thresholds previously used by NOAA.
Although NOAA has updated the acoustic threshold levels from those
previously used, and these changes may necessitate new methodologies
for calculating impacts, the application of the thresholds in the
regulatory context under applicable statutes (Marine Mammal Protection
Act, Endangered Species Act, and National Marine Sanctuaries Act)
remains consistent with past NOAA practice. It is important to note
that these updated acoustic threshold levels do not represent the
entirety of an impact assessment, but rather serve as one tool (in
addition to behavioral impact thresholds, auditory masking assessments,
evaluations to help understand the ultimate effects of any particular
type of impact on an individual's fitness, population assessments,
etc.), to help evaluate the effects of a proposed action on marine
mammals and make findings required by our various statutes.
The document is classified as a Highly Influential Scientific
Assessment by the Office of Management and Budget. As such, independent
peer review is required prior to broad public dissemination by the
Federal Government. NOAA conducted a peer review of the updated
acoustic threshold levels. Details of the peer review can be found
within this document, and at the following Web site: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/acoustics/.
A summary of the updated acoustic threshold levels can be found in
the main body of the document and additional details are provided in
the appendices. Section I provides an introduction to the document and
a description of how NOAA addressed uncertainty and data limitations.
NOAA's updated acoustic threshold levels for onset of PTS and TTS for
marine mammals exposed to underwater sound are presented in Section II.
Section III describes how acoustic threshold levels are interpreted
under NOAA's statutes. NOAA's plan for periodically updating acoustic
threshold levels is presented in Section IV. More details on the marine
mammal auditory weighting functions, the development of acoustic
threshold levels, the peer review process, and a glossary of acoustic
terms can be found in the appendices.
NOAA particularly encourages the public to identify any additional
datasets for inclusion in the assessment, and to comment on the
appropriateness of the proposed accumulation period for the cumulative
sound exposure metric and the proposed low-frequency auditory weighting
function for which direct measurements of hearing sensitivity are not
available.
Dated: December 19, 2013.
Alan D. Risenhoover,
Director, Office of Sustainable Fisheries, performing the functions and
duties of the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Regulatory Programs,
National Marine Fisheries Service.
[FR Doc. 2013-30951 Filed 12-26-13; 8:45 am]
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