[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 193 (Wednesday, October 5, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 61696-61699]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-25758]
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
[FRL-9475-8]
New York State Prohibition of Discharges of Vessel Sewage;
Receipt of Petition and Tentative Affirmative Determination
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Notice--Receipt of Petition and Tentative Affirmative
Determination.
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SUMMARY: Notice is hereby given that, pursuant to Clean Water Act,
Section 312(f)(3) (33 U.S.C. 1322(f)(3)), the State
[[Page 61697]]
of New York has determined that the protection and enhancement of the
quality of the New York State portions of Lake Ontario requires greater
environmental protection, and has petitioned the United States
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Region 2, for a determination
that adequate facilities for the safe and sanitary removal and
treatment of sewage from all vessels are reasonably available for those
waters, so that the State may completely prohibit the discharge from
all vessels of any sewage, whether treated or not, into such waters.
New York State (NYS or State) has proposed to establish a Vessel
Waste No Discharge Zone (NDZ) for the New York State portion of Lake
Ontario including the waters of the Lake within the New York State
boundary, stretching from the Niagara River (including the Niagara
River up to Niagara Falls) in the west, to Tibbetts Point at the Lake's
outlet to the Saint Lawrence River in the east. The proposed No
Discharge Zone encompasses approximately 3,675 square miles and 326
linear shoreline miles, including the navigable portions of the Lower
Genesee, Oswego, Black Rivers and numerous other tributaries and
harbors, embayments of the Lake including Irondequoit Bay, Sodus Bay,
North/South Ponds, Henderson Bay, Black River Bay and Chautmont Bay,
and abundance of formally designated habitats and waterways of local,
state, and national significance.
DATES: Comments regarding this tentative determination are due by
November 4, 2011.
ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by any of the following methods:
E-mail: [email protected]. Include ``Comments on
Tentative Affirmative Decision for NYS Lake Ontario NDZ'' in the
subject line of the message.
Fax: 212-637-3891
Mail and Hand Delivery/Courier: Moses Chang, U.S. EPA
Region 2, 290 Broadway, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10007-1866. Deliveries
are only accepted during the Regional Office's normal hours of
operation (8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding Federal
holidays), and special arrangements should be made for deliveries of
boxed information.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Moses Chang, (212) 637-3867, e-mail
address: [email protected]. The EPA Region 2 NDZ Web site is: http://www.epa.gov/region02/water/ndz/index.html. A copy of the State's NDZ
petition can be found there.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Notice is hereby given that the State of New
York (NYS or State) has petitioned the United States Environmental
Protection Agency, Region 2, (EPA) pursuant to section 312(f)(3) of
Public Law 92-500 as amended by Public Law 95-217 and Public Law 100-4,
that adequate facilities for the safe and sanitary removal and
treatment of sewage from all vessels are reasonably available for the
NYS portion of Lake Ontario. Adequate pumpout facilities are defined as
one pumpout station for every 300--600 boats pursuant to the Clean
Vessel Act: Pumpout Station and Dump Station Technical Guidelines
(Federal Register, Vol. 59, No. 47, March 10, 1994).
As one of the nation's premier waterbodies, the open waters,
harbors, embayments, creeks and wetlands of Lake Ontario support a
remarkable diversity of uses--fish spawning areas, breeding grounds,
valuable habitats, commercial and recreational boating, and a profusion
of recreational resources. The Lake serves as an economic engine for
the region and a place of great natural beauty, heavily used and
enjoyed by the citizens of the many lakeshore communities and
throughout the Lake Ontario Watershed, which encompasses about one-
quarter of New York State. It is also a source of drinking water for
760,000 people. The New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation (DEC) developed this petition in collaboration with New
York State Department of State (DOS) and the New York State
Environmental Facilities Corporation (EFC) in order to establish a
vessel waste No Discharge Zone (NDZ) on the open waters, tributaries,
harbors and embayments New York State's portion of Lake Ontario.
In 1987, the governments of Canada and the United States made a
commitment, under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA), to
develop a Lakewide Management Plan (LaMP) for each of the five Great
Lakes. This commitment was adopted into Federal law as part of the 1987
amendments to the U.S. Federal Water Pollution Control Act (33 U.S.C.
1268). The Lake Ontario LaMP is a binational, cooperative effort to
restore and protect the health of Lake Ontario by reducing chemical
pollutants entering the lake and addressing the needs of fish and
wildlife living in the watershed.
Virtually all of the waters of Lake Ontario are classified by New
York State as Class A. As such, the best usages of these waters are as
``a source of water supply for drinking, food processing purposes;
primary and secondary contact recreation; and fishing.'' Furthermore,
this classification states that such waters, if subjected to treatment
typical of and appropriate for water supply use, will meet New York
State Department of Health (DOH) drinking water standards and are or
will be considered safe and satisfactory for drinking water purposes.
Currently there are ten municipal water supplies that draw water
from Lake Ontario, serving over 760,000 people in New York State. But
the Lake's significance as a water supply goes beyond its current use.
As part of the Great Lakes System, Lake Ontario is one component of a
reservoir that contains 95 percent of the fresh surface water in the
United States and is the largest single reservoir on earth. As such,
the importance of protecting this water source cannot be overstated.
The Clean Vessel Act requires that one pumpout station be available
for every 300--600 boats in order to support a No Discharge Zone
Determination. Accordingly, for EPA to determine that adequate
facilities for the safe and sanitary removal and treatment of sewage
from all vessels are reasonably available for the New York State
portion of Lake Ontario, the State must demonstrate that the pumpout-
to-vessel ratio meets the requirement. In its petition, the State
described the recreational and commercial vessels that use Lake
Ontario, and the pumpout facilities that are available for their use.
Based on recreational boater registrations obtained through the New
York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation's 2009
Boating Report for the counties of Niagara, Orleans, Monroe, Wayne,
Cayuga, Oswego and Jefferson (all of which have shoreline on Lake
Ontario), a general estimate places the recreational vessel population
at 10,050.
There are 28 pumpout facilities funded by the Clean Vessel
Assistance Program (CVAP) in the relevant areas of the Lake. There are
also 9 other (non-CVAP funded) pumpouts available for recreational and
small commercial vessels for a total 37 facilities. These facilities
either discharge to a holding tank, to a municipal wastewater treatment
plant or to an on-site septic system. With 37 pumpouts available for
the 10,050 recreational and small commercial vessels that use the lake,
the pumpout-to-vessel ratio for those vessels is 1:272 (37:10,050).
Because 7 of the nine non-CVAP funded pumpout facilities did not
provide sufficient facility information in this petition we also
evaluated the vessel to pumpout ratio using a more conservative total
of 30 pumpout facilities for 10,050 boats yielding a 1:335 pumpout per
vessel
[[Page 61698]]
ratio. (Note: These are the 30 pumpout facilities identified in the
table below.) Based on NYS 2009 boater registrations, the pumpout
facility ratios for each individual county are as follows: Orleans
(1:138), Jefferson (1:193), Niagara (1:223), Oswego (1:231), Wayne
(1:234), Cayuga (1:252), and Monroe (1:449). Therefore, adequate
pumpout facilities for the safe and sanitary removal and treatment of
sewage for recreational vessels are reasonably available for the New
York portions of the lake as a whole and for each county on the lake
along the Lake Ontario shore line.
In addition, Lake Ontario is used by commercial vessels. Commercial
vessel populations were estimated using data from the National Ballast
Information Clearinghouse (NBIC), which records ballast water discharge
reports for arriving ships, and interviews with administrators involved
with the two main commercial ports on Lake Ontario, Oswego and
Rochester.
In the calendar year 2010, ballast manifests showed 73 vessel
arrivals at the Port of Oswego, 43 of these ships were bulkers carrying
a wide array of goods, such as petroleum, aluminum and salt. The other
30 ships consist of passenger ships, tugs and barges. During 2010
survey, ballast manifests showed 24 commercial vessels arriving at the
Port of Rochester, one passenger ship and 23 bulkers. As with the Port
of Oswego, all other commercial vessels in the Port of Rochester are
transient. Summing these sources, an upper bound estimate of commercial
boat traffic in Lake Ontario using New York ports is approximately 150
vessels a year, less than one every other day. Although there are no
fixed commercial vessel pumpouts at the Ports of Oswego or Rochester,
mobile pumpout services are available for hire. The Port of Rochester
reported that ``honey dipper'' trucks have come in to pumpout
commercial vessels on occasion while they are docked in the Port. The
Port of Rochester supplies all commercial vessels with the names of
pumpout trucks (as well as other services, such as solid waste
handlers) at the time they receive their permits to dock at the
terminal. Therefore, it appears that there are adequate pumpout
facilities to serve the commercial vessels in Lake Ontario.
Based on the above information which supports that adequate
facilities for the safe and sanitary removal and treatment of sewage
from all vessels are reasonably available for the Lake Ontario, the
State may completely prohibit the discharge from all vessels of any
sewage, whether treated or not, into such waters.
A list of the pumpout facilities, phone numbers, locations, hours
of operation, water depth and fee is provided as follows:
List of Pumpouts in the Lake Ontario NDZ Proposed Area
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Contact Days and hours Water depth
Number Name Location information of operation (feet) Fee
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1.......... Youngstown Yacht Lower Niagara 716-754-8245 Apr-Nov, Mon- 9'-12' $5.00
Club. River. Fri, 9 a.m.-5
p.m..
2.......... NYSOPRSHP-Wilson- Tuscarora Bay.. 716-278-1775 24 hours....... 5' $5.00
Tuscarora SP
Marina.
3.......... Tuscarora Yacht Tuscarora Bay.. 716-434-4475 9 a.m.-5 p.m... 7' $5.00
Club.
4.......... Rochester Yacht Genesee River/ 585-342-5511/ Mon-Sun, 7 a.m.- 9' \1\
Club. Lake Ontario. 585-314-6460 10p.m..
5.......... City of Genesee River-- 716-428-7045 Jan-Dec, 24 4'-6' 0.00
Rochester--Rive Canal North to hours.
r Street 490 Dam.
Waterfront.
6.......... County of Irondequoit Bay 716-428-5301 Apr-Oct, 7 a.m.- 8' $5.00
Monroe--Irondeq 7 p.m..
uoit Bay NYS
Marine.
7.......... Four C'S Marina Oak Orchard 585-682-4224 6 a.m.-7 p.m... 10' $5.00
at Oak Orchard Creek.
Creek.
8.......... Eagle Creek Oak Orchard 585-723-5708 8 a.m.-5 p.m... 8'-9' $5.00
Marina. Creek.
9.......... Braddock Marina. Braddock Bay... 585-227-1579 10 a.m.-4 p.m.. 2' $8.00
10......... Newport Marina, Irondequoit Bay 585-544-4950 Mar-Dec, 9 a.m.- 6' $10.00
Inc.. 6 p.m..
11......... Sutter's Marine, Irondequoit Bay 716-217-8811 Apr-Nov, Mon- 7' $5.00
Inc.. Fri, 6:30 a.m.-
5:00 p.m..
12......... Pultneyville Pultneyville... 315-524-2762 Apr-Sep, 24 6' $5.00
Yacht Club. hours.
13......... Sodus Bay Yacht Pultneyville... 315-483-9550 Apr-Sep, 24 6' $5.00
Club. hours.
14......... Krenzer Marine, Sodus Bay...... 315-483-8808 Apr-Nov, 8 a.m.- 3'-6' 0.00
Inc.. 5 p.m..
15......... Arney's Marina, Sodus Bay...... 315-483-9111 Apr-Oct, 9 a.m.- 7' $5.00
Inc.. 5 p.m..
16......... Anchor Resort Little Sodus 315-947-5331 Apr-Sep, 6 a.m.- 8'-10' $5.00
and Marina. Bay. 6 p.m..
17......... Bayside Marina.. Little Sodus 315-947-5773 Apr-Oct, 24 8' $5.00
Bay. hours.
18......... Port of Oswego-- (Erie) Oneida 315-343-4503 Apr-Nov, 7 a.m.- 15' $5.00
International Shore Park 9 p.m..
Marina West. Terminal--Thre
e Rivers Port
Terminal.
19......... Port of Oswego-- Three Rivers 315-343-4503 Apr-Nov, 7 a.m.- 18' $5.00
East Marina. Point 9 p.m..
Terminal--Lock
8 (Wright's
Landing).
20......... Mexico Bay Co... Mexico Bay-- 315-963-3221 Daylight hours. .............. $0.00
Little Salmon
River.
21......... Wigwam Marina... North Pond..... 315-387-3001 12 p.m.-4 p.m.. 8' $0.00
22......... Seber Shores North Pond..... 315-387-5502 May-Nov, 9 a.m.- 8' $5.00
Marina. 5 p.m..
23......... Harbor's End, Henderson Bay 315-938-5425 Apr-Nov, 8 a.m.- 4.5' $5.00
Inc.. and Harbor. 4:30 p.m..
24......... Henchen Marina.. Henderson Bay 315-938-5313 Apr-Oct, 7 a.m.- 8' $10.00
and Harbor. 8 p.m..
25......... Harbor View Henderson Bay 315-938-5494 May-Oct, 8 a.m.- .............. $0.00
Marina, Inc.. and Harbor. 5 p.m..
[[Page 61699]]
26......... Grunerts Marina. Black River Bay 315-646-2003 ............... .............. $0.00
27......... Navy Point Black River Bay 315-646-3364 May-Nov, 8 a.m.- 10' $0.00
Marina. 5 p.m..
28......... Madison Barracks Black River Bay 315-646-3374 May 15-Oct 15, 10' $0.00
8 a.m.-6 p.m..
29......... Kitto's Marina.. Chaumont Bay... 315-788-2191 Apr-Oct, 8 a.m.- 7' $0.00
7 p.m..
30......... Chaumont Club... Black River Bay 315-649-5018 Apr 15 -Nov, 7 6.5'-7' $0.00
a.m.-5 p.m..
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\1\ Free--Members/$10.00--Guest.
Based on the information above, EPA hereby proposes to make an
affirmative determination that adequate facilities for the safe and
sanitary removal and treatment of sewage from all vessels are available
for the waters of the New York State portion of Lake Ontario. A 30-day
period for public comment has been opened on this matter, and EPA
invites any comments relevant to its proposed determination.
Dated: September 27, 2011.
Judith A. Enck,
Regional Administrator, Region 2.
[FR Doc. 2011-25758 Filed 10-4-11; 8:45 am]
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