Louisiana Administrative Code › Title 76 - WILDLIFE AND FISHERIES › Part VII - Fish and Other Aquatic Life › Chapter 5 - Oysters › Section VII-501 - Oyster Leases

Current through Register Vol. 50, No. 6, June 20, 2024
A. Office
				Policies and Leasing Procedures
1. Office
				hours will be from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday excluding state
				holidays.
2. If leases overlap, the
				department will examine the leases involved and eliminate the overlap by
				maintaining the overlapped area as part of the earliest-issued lease, amending
				the other lease agreement(s) and lease plat(s) to subtract the overlapped area,
				and notifying the lessees of the action taken.
3. If examination of a lease indicates an
				acreage miscalculation, the department will amend the lease agreement and lease
				plat to state the correct acreage and notify the lessee of the action
				taken.
4. The oyster lease section
				will keep an indexing system to determine the acreage held by all oyster
				lessees. The oyster lease section will also receive and accept information
				related to the location of private oyster leases, provided that they are on
				state claimed water bottoms and were encumbered by a private oyster lease that
				was in effect and properly recorded as of February 1, 2016, and to the extent
				possible, the location of such leases will be made available to the public
				through inclusion as part of the existing indexing system and/or the geographic
				index system ("GIS"). Pursuant to
				R.S.
				56:432, no single lessee may hold more than
				2,500 acres under lease. Whoever is found to have leased more than the allotted
				amount by a court of competent jurisdiction shall forfeit all leases held on
				any water bottom of the state.
5.
				Oyster leases shall not be issued or renewed within the boundaries of a
				Wildlife Management Area or a designated public oyster seed ground or
				reservation. If extenuating circumstances are established and significant
				public interests would be furthered, the secretary has the discretion to grant
				exceptions to this prohibition on a case by case basis.
6. All oyster leases are subordinate to the
				rights or responsibilities of the state, any political subdivision of the
				state, the United States, or any agency or agent thereof, to take any action in
				furtherance of integrated coastal protection as defined in
				R.S.
				49:214.2.
7. Subordination and Designation of Access
				Channels
a. With the exception of those
				oyster leases issued under authority of Phase I of the Oyster Lease Moratorium
				Lifting Priority (LAC 76:VII.505.A.2), any oyster lease initially applied for
				after July 1, 2016, or any renewal or judicial partition of such lease, is
				subordinate to the rights of any person:
i. to
				engage in any activity authorized by a coastal use permit, determination,
				coastal use authorization, or drilling permit (collectively, for purposes of
				this Section, a "permit") for which the permit application was received prior
				to the date the application for the oyster lease was received. This
				subordination shall apply only within those areas as designated by the permit.
				If no area is delineated by the permit, then the default area shall be 75 feet
				from the centerline of a pipeline and 250 feet from the outside of a well,
				platform, shell pad, or facility;
ii. to operate, maintain, repair, replace,
				rehabilitate, or remove any pipeline, well, platform, shell pad, or facility on
				or impacting such an oyster lease where the structure was placed or constructed
				prior to September 20, 1980, or prior to the date the oyster lease was issued.
				This subordination applies only to areas 75 feet from the centerline of a
				pipeline and 250 feet from the outside of a well, platform, shell pad, or
				facility;
iii. to cross an oyster
				lease to access any activity, pipeline, well, platform, shell pad, or facility
				to which Clause A.7.a.i or A.7.a.h of this Section applies, within a single
				access route properly designated and identified as follows:
(a). for any activity, pipeline, well,
				platform, shell pad, or facility, including removal of any of those structures,
				for which a single access channel is identified in the permit, the department
				shall recognize that as the sole access channel across any subordinate oyster
				lease;
(b). if multiple access
				channels are identified in the permit that cross any subordinate oyster lease,
				then the holder of the permit shall propose one of them as the sole access
				channel to the oyster lease section in writing, identifying the centerline of
				the access channel using the North American Datum 1983 state plane coordinates.
				Upon receiving the proposal, the oyster lease section shall notify each
				affected oyster lessee in writing. Upon receiving written notification, the
				oyster lessee shall have 30 calendar days to object in writing to the oyster
				lease section and show good cause why the department should not consent to the
				proposed designation. If an objection is not made within this time period, the
				department shall recognize the access channel as proposed. If an objection is
				timely made, the department shall so notify all affected oyster lessees and the
				holder of the Permit in writing. The affected oyster lessees and the holder of
				the Permit shall have 30 days from issuance of this notice to propose a
				mutually agreeable access channel and submit it to the department, identifying
				the centerline using the North American Datum 1983 state plane coordinates, and
				the department shall recognize that as the sole access channel. Should the
				parties fail to reach a mutually agreeable resolution within this time period,
				the secretary shall have sole discretion to designate a sole access channel
				across the oyster lease from among those identified in the permit;
(c). for any activity, pipeline, well,
				platform, shell pad, or facility, including removal of any of those structures,
				that was placed or constructed before September 20, 1980 or was placed or
				constructed before the oyster lease was issued, but for which no access channel
				has been previously authorized, the holder of the Permit shall propose a single
				access channel in writing to the Oyster Lease Section, identifying its
				centerline using the North American Datum (NAD) 1983 state plane coordinates.
				Upon receiving the proposal, the oyster lease section shall notify each
				affected oyster lessee in writing. Upon receiving written notification, the
				oyster lessee shall have 30 calendar days to object in writing to the oyster
				lease section and show good cause why the department should not consent to the
				proposed designation. If an objection is not made during this time period, the
				department shall recognize the access channel as proposed. If an objection is
				timely made, the department shall so notify all affected oyster lessees and the
				holder of the permit in writing. The affected oyster lessees and the holder of
				the permit shall have 30 days from issuance of this notice to propose a
				mutually agreeable access channel and submit it to the department, identifying
				the centerline using the (NAD) 1983 state plane coordinates, and the department
				shall recognize that as the sole access channel. Should the parties fail to
				reach a mutually agreeable resolution within this time period, the secretary
				shall have sole discretion to designate a sole access channel across the oyster
				lease;
(d). any access channel
				designated across a subordinate oyster lease and accepted by the department
				shall be the area within 50 feet from the designated centerline of the
				channel;
(e). in addition, if a
				spoil area was previously identified in the permit for an access channel
				designated pursuant to this Subparagraph, this Subparagraph shall also apply to
				the same spoil area; however, such spoil area shall be limited to eighty feet
				in width adjacent to one side of the access channel.
8. All
				leases, all applications for leases by persons who have since died, and all
				property rights or interests acquired pursuant to such leases, made in
				conformity with the provisions of law and rule, are heritable and transferable.
				No such inheritance of transfer is effective with respect to the department
				unless and until an authentic act, judgment, or other valid instrument
				translative of title to the lease, application, or property right or interest
				is registered in the oyster lease section. In the event any oyster lease has
				been inherited, assigned or transferred to a non-resident, that lease shall not
				be renewed, pursuant to the residency requirements established in
				R.S.
				56:422.
9. The fee schedule for all processes, as
				well as the purchase of extra maps, leases, plats or documents, is as follows.
Desktop Examination
$260
New Ground Application
$40
Renewal Application
$30
Lease Transfer
$10 per lease
Maps
$10 per copy
Plats
$5 per copy
Lease Documents
$5 per copy
Other materials
$1 per copy
Computations
State Plane to Latitude/Longitude
$2 per point
GIS Data
$5 per lease
$50 per USGS 24k section
$200 for the data set