[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 246 (Monday, December 23, 2013)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 77397-77399]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2013-30497]


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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Department of the Army, Corps of Engineers

33 CFR Part 208


Flood Control Regulations, Marshall Ford Dam (Mansfield Dam and 
Lake Travis), Colorado River, Texas

AGENCY: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, DoD.

ACTION: Notice of proposed rulemaking and request for comments.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) is proposing to amend 
the rules regarding use and administration of Marshall Ford Dam 
(Mansfield Dam and Lake Travis), Colorado River, Texas. In 1997, the 
Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) completed repayment of the 
federal government's contribution for acquisition and construction 
costs related to Mansfield Dam. Subsequently, the United States Bureau 
of Reclamation (USBR) relinquished all rights and obligations to the 
project. However, the U.S. Department of the Interior and the USBR are 
referenced as project stakeholders in the Flood Control Regulations. 
Amending the referenced regulations to update project ownership will 
eliminate the current discrepancy between the regulations and 
associated project documents. The Fort Worth District of the Corps and 
LCRA are finalizing a revised water control plan for Lake Travis. There 
is no intent to publish the updated water control plan in the Federal 
Register. Amending the regulations to indicate that the water control 
plan has been superseded would eliminate the need to amend the 
regulations each time the water control plan is modified.

DATES: Comments must be received by January 22, 2014.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by docket number COE-
2013-0013, by any of the following methods:
    Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the 
instructions for submitting comments.
    Email: [email protected]. Include the docket number, COE-
2013-0013, in the subject line of the message.
    Mail: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, ATTN: CECW-SWD (Sandy Gore), 
441 G Street NW., Washington, DC 20314-1000.
    Hand Delivery/Courier: Due to security requirements, we cannot 
receive comments by hand delivery or courier.
    Instructions: Direct your comments to docket number COE-2013-0013. 
All comments received will be included in the public docket without 
change and may be made available on-line at http://www.regulations.gov, 
including any personal information provided, unless the commenter 
indicates that the comment includes information claimed to be 
Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other information whose 
disclosure is restricted by statute. Do not submit information that you 
consider to be CBI, or otherwise protected, through regulations.gov or 
email. The regulations.gov Web site is an anonymous access system, 
which means we will not know your identity or contact information 
unless you provide it in the body of your comment. If you send an email 
directly to the Corps without going through regulations.gov, your email 
address will be automatically captured and included as part of the 
comment that is placed in the public docket and made available on the 
Internet. If you submit an electronic comment, we recommend that you 
include your name and other contact information in the body of your 
comment and with any disk or CD-ROM you submit. If we cannot read your 
comment because of technical difficulties and cannot contact you for 
clarification, we may not be able to consider your comment. Electronic 
comments should avoid the use of any special characters, any form of 
encryption, and be free of any defects or viruses.
    Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or 
comments received, go to www.regulations.gov. All documents in the 
docket are listed. Although listed in the index, some information is 
not publicly available, such as CBI or other information whose 
disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such as 
copyrighted material, is not placed on the Internet and will be 
publicly available only in hard copy form.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Sandy Gore at 202-761-5237 or by email 
at [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

[[Page 77398]]

Executive Summary

    The purpose of this action is to amend the regulations to reflect 
changes in ownership and responsibilities of flood control management 
of Marshall Ford Dam (Mansfield Dam and Lake Travis) by the U.S. Army 
Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the Lower Colorado River Authority 
(LCRA) and to clarify that the published water control plan has been 
superseded. Specifically, the objective is to amend 33 CFR 208 to 
indicate:
    (A) A change in project ownership. This will require revision of 33 
CFR 208.11(e) List of Projects, which currently indicates USBR as the 
project owner, and 33 CFR 208.19, which references the Secretary of the 
Interior and the Bureau of Reclamation as the responsible party for 
operating Marshall Ford Dam in the interest of flood control above 
elevation 714.
    (B) Revision of the Marshall Ford Dam (Mansfield Dam and Lake 
Travis) water control plan in 2012.
    (C) USACE intention to henceforth forego publication of the 
Marshall Ford Dam (Mansfield Dam and Lake Travis) water control plan in 
the Federal Register.
    (D) USACE and LCRA as sources for obtaining information regarding 
the most recently approved and therefore currently the effective water 
control plan.

Background

    Mansfield Dam was funded, planned, and built by the United States 
Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) from February 1937 through September 1940. 
The Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) acquired the land for the 
project and paid for the majority of the costs related to the 
hydroelectric power facilities. The USBR was the project owner while 
LCRA was repaying the federal government contribution to the project. 
LCRA completed repayment in May 1997, and the USBR relinquished all 
rights and obligations to the project. USBR has formally requested 
USACE revise the water control manual (of which the water control plan 
is an integral part) and any other regulatory documents accordingly.
    As a result of Section 7 of the Flood Control Act of 1944, the U.S. 
Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is responsible for prescribing a formal 
water control plan for regulation of the Lake Travis storage space 
allocated for flood control (elevation 681.0 to elevation 714.0). As 
per ER 1110-2-241, Use of Storage Allocated for Flood Control and 
Navigation at Non-Corps Projects (24 May 1990), paragraph 6.d.--Water 
Control Plan and Manual, the Corps of Engineers is responsible for 
developing the formal flood control regulation/water control plan, 
documenting the plan in a water control manual, and furnishing a copy 
of the manual to the project owner. A water control plan for Lake 
Travis was published in the Federal Register (33 CFR 208.19) in May of 
1951. Subsequently, 33 CFR part 208 was amended in April 1976, and 
again in April 1979, by revising Section 208.19 to reflect revision of 
the water control plan. Each of these three respective water control 
plans, and Section 208.11, identifies the U.S. Department of the 
Interior and/or the USBR as stakeholders in the project.
    In 2012, based on results of a recent study, USACE--Fort Worth 
District and LCRA finalized a jointly supported revision of the water 
control plan for Lake Travis. There being no requirement for 
publication of the water control plan in the Federal Register, USACE 
plans to henceforth forego doing so. Also in 2012, USACE--Fort Worth 
District and LCRA agreed on a formal Letter of Understanding (LOU) and 
a Water Control Agreement (WCA) in accordance with ER 1110-2-241, Use 
of Storage Allocated for Flood Control and Navigation at Non-Corps 
Projects (24 May 1990). LCRA has agreed to sign the LOU and the WCA, 
and adopt the new water control plan, upon amendment of the CFR to 
indicate the last published water control plan (April 1979) has been 
superseded.

Administrative Requirements

Plain Language

    In compliance with the principles in the President's memorandum of 
June 1, 1998, (63 FR 31855) regarding plain language, this preamble is 
written using plain language. The use of ``we'' in this notice refers 
to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. We have also used the active 
voice, short sentences, and common everyday terms except for necessary 
technical terms.

Paperwork Reduction Act

    This action does not impose any new information collection burden 
under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act, 44 U.S.C. 3501 et 
seq. This proposed rule adjusts our civil penalty amounts to comply 
with the requirements of the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation 
Adjustment Act of 1990, as amended. Therefore, this action is not 
subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act.
    Burden means the total time, effort, or financial resources 
expended by persons to generate, maintain, retain, or disclose or 
provide information to or for a Federal agency. This includes the time 
needed to review instructions; develop, acquire, install, and utilize 
technology and systems for the purposes of collecting, validating, and 
verifying information, processing and maintaining information, and 
disclosing and providing information; adjust the existing ways to 
comply with any previously applicable instructions and requirements; 
train personnel to be able to respond to a collection of information; 
search data sources; complete and review the collection of information; 
and transmit or otherwise disclose the information.
    An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required 
to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a 
currently valid OMB control number. For the Corps regulatory program 
under Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, Section 404 of 
the Clean Water Act, and Section 103 of the Marine Protection, Research 
and Sanctuaries Act of 1972, the current OMB approval number for 
information requirements is maintained by the Corps of Engineers (OMB 
approval number 0710-0003).

Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA), as Amended by the Small Business 
Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 (SBREFA), 5 U.S.C. 601 et 
seq.

    The RFA generally requires an agency to prepare a regulatory 
flexibility analysis of any rule subject to notice-and-comment 
rulemaking requirements under the Administrative Procedure Act or any 
other statute unless the agency certifies that the rule will not have a 
significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. 
Small entities include small businesses, small organizations and small 
governmental jurisdictions.
    For purposes of assessing the impacts of this proposed rule on 
small entities, a small entity is defined as: (1) A small business 
based on Small Business Administration size standards; (2) a small 
governmental jurisdiction that is a government of a city, county, town, 
school district, or special district with a population of less than 
50,000; or (3) a small organization that is any not-for-profit 
enterprise which is independently owned and operated and is not 
dominant in its field.
    After considering the economic impacts of this proposed rule on 
small entities, we believe that this action will not have a significant 
economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. The proposed 
rule is consistent with current agency practice, does not impose new 
substantive requirements,

[[Page 77399]]

and therefore would not have a significant economic impact on a 
substantial number of small entities.

Congressional Review Act

    The Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 801 et seq., as amended by 
the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996, 
generally provides that before a rule may take effect, the agency 
promulgating the rule must submit a rule report, which includes a copy 
of the rule, to each House of the Congress and to the Comptroller 
General of the United States. We will submit a report containing this 
rule and other required information to the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House 
of Representatives, and the Comptroller General of the United States. A 
major rule cannot take effect until 60 days after it is published in 
the Federal Register. This rule is not a ``major rule'' as defined by 5 
U.S.C. 804(2).

List of Subjects in 33 CFR Part 208

    Dams, Flood control, Intergovernmental relations, Reservoirs.

    For the reasons set out in the preamble, the Corps proposes to 
amend 33 CFR part 208 as follows:

PART 208--FLOOD CONTROL REGULATIONS

0
1. The authority citation for 33 CFR part 208 continues to read as 
follows:

    Authority:  Sec. 7, 58 Stat. 890; 33 U.S.C. 709.

0
2. Amend Sec.  208.11(e) as follows:
0
a. Revise the entry for Marshall Ford Dam and Reservoir on the ``List 
of Projects'' table; and
0
b. Revise footnote 4.


Sec.  208.11  Regulations for use of storage allocated for flood 
control or navigation and/or project operation at reservoirs subject to 
prescription of rules and regulations by the Secretary of the Army in 
the interest of flood control and navigation.

* * * * *
    (e) * * *

                                                                                        List of Projects
                                                                     [Non-Corps projects with Corps regulation requirements]
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                                                                                                                    Elev limits feet        Area in acres
                                                                                      Project purpose   Storage          M.S.L.        ----------------------    Authorizing     Proj. owner \4\
    Project name \1\  (1)         State  (2)        County  (3)     Stream \1\  (4)      \2\  (5)       1000 AF  ----------------------   Upper      Lower    legis. \3\  (11)        (12)
                                                                                                          (6)     Upper (7)  Lower (8)     (9)        (10)
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                                                                                          * * * * * * *
Marshall Ford Dam & Res......  TX..............  Travis..........  Colorado R......  F...............      779.8      714.0      681.0      29060      18955  PL 73-392.......  LCRA.
                                                                                     NEIM............      810.5      681.0      618.0      18955       8050  PL 78-534.......
 
                                                                                          * * * * * * *
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\1\ Cr--Creek; CS--Control Structure; Div--Diversion; DS--Drainage Structure; FG--Floodgate; Fk--Fork; GIWW--Gulf Intercoastal Waterway; Lk--Lake; L&D--Lock & Dam; PS--Pump Station; R--River;
  Res--Reservoir.
\2\ F--Flood Control; N--Navigation; P--Corps Hydropower; E--Non Corps Hydropower; I--Irrigation; M--Municipal and/or Industrial Water Supply; C--Fish and Wildlife Conservation; A--Low Flow
  Augmentation or Pollution Abatement; R--Recreation; Q--Water Quality or Silt Control.
\3\ FCA--Flood Control Act; FERC--Federal Energy Regulatory Comm; HD--House Document; PL--Public Law; PW--Public Works; RHA--River & Harbor Act; SD--Senate Document; WSA--Water Supply Act.
\4\ Appl Pwr--Appalachian Power; Chln PUD--Chelan Cnty PUD 1; CLPC--CT Light & Power Co; Dgls PUD--Douglas Cnty PUD 1; DWR--Department of Water Resources; EB-MUD--East Bay Municipal Utility
  Dist; GRD--Grand River Dam Auth; Grnt PUD--Grant Cnty PUD 2; Hnbl--city of Hannibal; LCRA--Lower Colorado River Authority; M&T Irr--Modesto & Turlock Irr; Mrcd Irr--Merced Irr; NEPC--New
  England Power Co; Pgnt P&L--Pugent Sound Power & Light; Ptmc Comm--Upper Potomac R Comm; Rclm B--Reclamation Board; Rkfd--city of Rockford; Sttl--city of Seattle; Tac--City of Tacoma; Vale
  USBR--50% Vale Irr 50% USBR; WF&CWID--City of Wichita Falls and Wichita Cnty Water Improvement District No. 2; WMEC--Western MA Electric Co; YCWA--Yuba City Water Auth; Yolo FC&W--Yolo Flood
  Control & Water Conserv Dist.

* * * * *
0
3. Revise Sec.  208.19 to read as follows:


Sec.  208.19  Marshall Ford Dam and Reservoir (Mansfield Dam and Lake 
Travis), Colorado River, Texas.

    In the interest of flood control, the Lower Colorado River 
Authority (LCRA) shall operate the Marshall Ford Dam and Reservoir in 
accordance with the water control plan of regulation most recently 
approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), effective on the 
date specified in the approval. Information regarding the most recently 
approved water control plan of regulation may be obtained by contacting 
the LCRA offices in Austin, Texas, or the offices of the U.S. Army 
Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth Engineer District, in Fort Worth, Texas.

    Dated: December 13, 2013.
James C. Dalton,
Chief of Engineering and Construction, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
[FR Doc. 2013-30497 Filed 12-20-13; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3720-58-P