Ocean Protection Council
California Aquaculture Action Plan.
OPC's Aquaculture Action Plan is the closest thing California has to a unified strategy for what this industry should look like. Permit Reef is built to operationalize what the plan calls for — and to surface the gaps between the plan and the ground.
2024
Plan released
17
Active CA leases
5–10y
New-lease timeline
What the plan emphasizes
Four currents we're rowing with.
Each pillar of OPC's plan maps to a piece of Permit Reef. Below: what the plan says, and the cold number it's trying to fix.
A clear path to permitted operations
OPC's plan calls for a coordinated state framework that small farms can actually navigate — exactly the gap Permit Reef tries to fill in the meantime.
Public investment in baseline science
The plan acknowledges that requiring every applicant to fund their own baseline surveys is unworkable. State-funded baseline datasets would unlock dozens of small projects.
Restoration aquaculture as a recognized category
Native shellfish and seaweed restoration as a distinct, encouraged use of state waters — with funding pathways and a permitting on-ramp.
Equity and access for small operators
Explicit attention to who can afford to participate in California aquaculture. Co-ops, tribal operators, and emerging growers are not a footnote in this plan; they're a stated priority.
How Permit Reef plugs in
The plan needs a place to land.
A statewide plan is a document. A small farmer needs a workflow. Permit Reef is the workflow layer for the plan's intent: a place to draft an EIR using shared baseline data, a checklist of agency requirements, a public ledger of data gaps, and an honest tracker of how the system is — and isn't — improving.
Open invitation
Are you at OPC, CDFW, CCC, or another agency working on this plan? We'd love to share our schema. The whole thing is built so it can be adopted, forked, or absorbed into a state system whenever you're ready.