What is the Territorial Sea Plan?
The State of Oregon holds the waters, shoreline, and living resources of its shoreline in trust for the public. The state has therefore established in law a program of planning and management that includes ocean resource goals and policies. The Oregon Territorial Sea Plan (TSP) was first adopted in 1994 and provides detailed guidance to state and federal agencies to manage uses within the state’s territorial sea, from shore to three nautical miles offshore. State ocean resources are governed by a tapestry of authorities at multiple government scales, and the TSP acts as a coordinating framework from which individual agencies institute regulations and management activities.
The Ocean Policy Advisory Council (OPAC) was given the responsibility of stewarding the TSP, in conjunction with the Oregon Land Conservation and Development, when necessary to deal with new concerns as they occur.
Updating the Rocky Habitat Management Strategy, May 2023
These designations completes a multiple year effort led by the Ocean Policy Advisory Council to revise the Management Strategy and was focused on site management designations along areas of Oregon’s iconic rocky shoreline. The effort included extensive input from agencies, organizations, governments, and general rocky coast users on revisions to the Plan.
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Read more: Updating the Rocky Habitat Management Strategy, May 2023
Plan History
In 1991 the Oregon Legislature amended ORS chapter 196 to establish the Ocean Policy Advisory Council (OPAC) made up of a variety of ocean stakeholders, local governments, and state agencies, and charged it with providing the governor and state agencies with policy advice on ocean matters. The legislation gave the Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD), which includes the state’s federally-approved coastal management program, primary responsibility for ocean planning and providing assistance to OPAC. One of OPAC’s basic duties was to prepare a Territorial Sea Plan (TSP) for managing the resources and activities in the state's territorial sea. Click here to view the folder Oregon Territorial Sea Plan .
Click the "read more" button below to learn more about the history of the Territorial Sea Plan.
Territorial Sea Plan Part Five: Marine Renewable Energy Development
Part Five of Oregon's Territorial Sea Plan describes the process for making decisions concerning the development of renewable energy facilities (e.g. wind, wave, current, thermal, etc.) in the state territorial sea, and specifies the areas where that development may be sited. The requirements of Part Five are intended to protect areas important to renewable marine resources (i.e. living marine organisms), ecosystem integrity, marine habitat and areas important to fisheries from the potential adverse effects of renewable energy development (facility siting, development, operation, and decommissioning). Part Five provides a system to identify the appropriate locations for that development which minimize the potential adverse impacts to existing ocean resource users and coastal communities.
Read more: Territorial Sea Plan Part Five: Marine Renewable Energy Development
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TSP Rocky Habitat Proposal Further Evaluation Workshops
TSP Rocky Habitat Proposal Further Evaluation Workshops