Ocean Protection Council
California Aquaculture Action Plan.
OPC's Statewide Marine Aquaculture Action Plan, adopted at the Council's June 16, 2026 meeting, 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.
Jun 2026
Plan adopted
17
Active CA leases
5–10y
New-lease timeline
What the plan emphasizes
Four currents we're rowing with.
Each theme maps to a piece of Permit Reef. Below: our reading of the plan's direction, 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
Our read: asking every applicant to fund their own baseline surveys is unworkable at small-farm scale. State-funded baseline datasets would open the door for projects that can't carry that cost alone.
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.
In progress · Reform sketches
Statutory options are being drafted on the working desk — modelled on existing California precedent for coastal permitting and restoration streamlining. They are unfinished and not circulated; agency staff and tribal resource offices are welcome to review them with us before anything is written down as a position.
Ask for a seat to review them