In order to “provide the public with additional time and opportunity” to provide information, the Coast Guard today announced that it is extending the comment period through Tuesday, June 30 on its preparation of an Alaskan Arctic Coast Port Access Route Study to evaluate the need for establishing vessel routing measures. The comment period was set to expire on Thursday, January 30, following a previous extension announced on Sept. 4, 2019.
Through the study, the Coast Guard says it will enhance navigational safety by analyzing current vessel patterns, predicting future vessel needs, and balancing the needs of all waterway users by developing and recommending vessel routing measures for the Arctic Coast.
The Coast Guard is particularly interested in identifying specific locations, times, or instances where future vessel activity could increase significantly in density or cause specific undesirable consequences, with specific areas of concern including times and/or locations where vessel operations could cause significant consequences to species of concern, subsistence activities, marine mammal migration routes, or other equities, areas of known biological importance and whether they are important year-round or only at specific times, and offshore areas identified or expected to have high potential for oil and natural gas, renewable energy, or seabed resource development.
