[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 69 (Tuesday, April 9, 2024)]
[Notices]
[Pages 24809-24810]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2024-07470]


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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Department of the Army, Corps of Engineers

[DA Permit No. NAO-2013-00418 and Section 408 Request ID No. 408-NAO-
2022-0056]


Notice of Final Federal Agency Action on the Authorization for 
the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Commercial Project

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

[[Page 24810]]


ACTION: Notice of limitation on claims for judicial review of actions 
by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).

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SUMMARY: USACE announces final agency action on the USACE authorization 
for the proposed construction and maintenance of the Coastal Virginia 
Offshore Wind (CVOW) Commercial Project offshore Virginia. USACE has 
issued a permit authorizing the construction and maintenance of the 
CVOW Project under sections 10 and 14 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 
1899 (RHA) and section 404 of the Clean Water Act (CWA). The CVOW 
Project is a ``covered project'' under Title 41 of the Fixing America's 
Surface Transportation Act.

DATES: A claim seeking judicial review of the USACE authorization of 
construction and maintenance of the CVOW Project will be barred unless 
the claim is filed not later than two years after this notice's 
publication date. If the Federal law that allows for judicial review of 
the USACE authorization specifies a shorter time period for filing such 
a claim, then that shorter time period will apply.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Nicole Woodward, Regulatory Project 
Manager, Regulatory Branch, USACE, Norfolk District, 803 Front Street, 
Norfolk, Virginia 23510, (757) 201-7122, or 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Notice is hereby given that USACE has taken 
final agency action on its authorization for the proposed CVOW Project 
by issuing a permit authorizing construction and maintenance of the 
Project under sections 10 and 14 of the RHA and section 404 of the CWA. 
The authorized work will occur within the Atlantic Ocean off the coast 
of Virginia at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay within the Bureau of 
Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Lease Area No. OCS-A-0483, extending 
along an offshore cable corridor to a point on the shore at the 
Virginia State Military Reservation (SMR) in Virginia Beach, Virginia, 
then extending along an onshore utility corridor within the cities of 
Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, Virginia.
    The offshore portion of the project will include the installation 
of one hundred seventy-six (176) 14.7 MW wind turbine generators (WTGs) 
located within a 112,799-acre lease area approximately 27 miles off the 
Virginia Beach, Virginia coastline. Approximately 180-foot maximum 
diameter of stone scour protection will be installed around the WTGs. 
The project will also include the construction of three (3) offshore 
substations (OSS) with approximately 0.95 acres of scour protection, 
and approximately 229 miles of 660-kilovolt (kV) inter-array cables. In 
addition, nine (9) buried 230 kV offshore export cables will extend 
from the lease area to the onshore cable landing area. The offshore 
export cables will cross Cells 2 and 5 of the Dam Neck Ocean Disposal 
Site (DNODS) and three (3) existing fiber optic, in-service 
telecommunications cables; twenty-seven (27) 39.5-foot-long by 9-foot-
wide by 0.5-foot-tall bottom protection concrete mattresses and twenty-
seven (27) 138-foot-long by 9-foot-wide by 0.5-foot-tall top protection 
concrete mattresses will be installed to protect the proposed offshore 
export cables at these locations. Nine (9) temporary cofferdams will be 
installed at the nearshore trenchless installation punch-out locations 
to facilitate lowering the direct pipe within the transition zones 
where the offshore export cables exit the sea floor. If it is 
determined that the use of cofferdams is not feasible during 
construction, then nine (9) 82-foot-long by 6.6-foot-wide by 1-foot-
high concrete mattresses will be installed above the transition zones 
as added cable protection. In addition, up to 108 temporary steel pipe 
piles may be installed along the HDD pipe alignments to act as ``goal-
posts'' to the punch-out locations during construction.
    Prior to construction, the offshore project area will be surveyed 
using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) with a suction pump attachment 
to identify potential munitions and explosives of concern (MEC) and 
unexploded ordnance (UXO) targets that cannot be avoided. The proposed 
mitigation of MEC/UXO for the project is limited to relocation via 
``lift and shift'' measures. The Permittee does not intend to conduct 
deflagration or detonation of MEC/UXO. It is anticipated that an 
average disturbance of 161.5 square feet of ocean bottom per mitigation 
of one MEC/UXO will be required as detailed in the MEC/UXO Disposition 
Plan and MEC/UXO Identification Survey Reports.
    The onshore portion of the project will begin where the offshore 
export cables come onshore at the cable landing location at the State 
Military Reservation (SMR) in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The cables will 
then transition to nine (9) underground 230 kV onshore export cables, 
which will extend underground approximately 4.4 miles from the SMR to 
the proposed Harpers Switching Station located on Naval Air Station 
Oceana. From the Harpers Switching Station, the onshore export cables 
will transition to overhead interconnection cables and extend 
approximately 14.2 miles along new, existing, and expanded right-of-way 
corridors to the existing Fentress Substation in Chesapeake, Virginia. 
The onshore work will result in permanent impacts to approximately 1.70 
acres of palustrine emergent wetlands, 0.68 acres of palustrine scrub/
shrub wetlands, 7.98 acres of palustrine forested wetlands, and 153 
linear feet of stream, and the conversion of approximately 29.70 acres 
of palustrine forested wetlands to palustrine scrub/shrub wetlands, and 
temporary impacts to approximately 0.38 acres of palustrine scrub/shrub 
and 25.46 acres of palustrine emergent wetlands.
    The USACE's decision to issue a permit, and the laws under which 
the action was taken, are described in the Coastal Virginia Offshore 
Wind Commercial Project Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) 
published on September, 29, 2023, in the Record of Decision (ROD) 
issued on January 29, 2024, and in other project records. The FEIS and 
other documents can be viewed and downloaded from the BOEM project 
website at https://www.boem.gov/renewable-energy/state-activities/CVOW-C. The USACE permit and ROD can be viewed and downloaded from the USACE 
website at https://www.nao.usace.army.mil/Missions/Regulatory/Offshore-Wind-Projects/. By this notice, USACE is advising the public of final 
agency action subject to 42 U.S.C. 4370m-6(a)(1)(A).
    Authority: 42 U.S.C. 4370m-6(a)(1)(A).

John P. Lloyd,
Brigadier General, USA, Commanding.
[FR Doc. 2024-07470 Filed 4-8-24; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3720-58-P