DEFINITIONS.

In this chapter:

(1) "Land office" means the General Land Office.

(2) "Commissioner" means the Commissioner of the General Land Office.

(2-a) "Committee" means the Coastal Coordination Advisory Committee.

(3) "Board" means the School Land Board.

(4) "Person" means any individual, firm, partnership, association, corporation which is public or private and profit or nonprofit, trust, or political subdivision or agency of the state.

(5) "Coastal area" means the geographic area comprising all the counties in Texas which have any tidewater shoreline, including that portion of the bed and water of the Gulf of Mexico within the jurisdiction of the State of Texas.

(6) "Coastal public land" means all or any portion of state-owned submerged land, the water overlying that land, and all state-owned islands or portions of islands in the coastal area.

(7) "Island" means any body of land surrounded by the water of a saltwater lake, bay, inlet, estuary, or inland body of water within the tidewater limits of this state and shall include man-made islands resulting from dredging or other operations.

(8) "Management program" means the coastal management program provided by this chapter.

(9) "Seaward" means the direction away from the shore and toward the body of water bounded by the shore.

(10) "Structure" means any structure, work, or improvement constructed on, affixed to, or worked on coastal public land, including fixed or floating piers, wharves, docks, jetties, groins, breakwaters, artificial reefs, fences, posts, retaining walls, levees, ramps, cabins, houses, shelters, landfills, excavations, land canals, channels, and roads.

(11) "Submerged land" means any land extending from the boundary between the land of the state and the littoral owners seaward to the low-water mark on any saltwater lake, bay, inlet, estuary, or inland water within the tidewater limits, and any land lying beneath the body of water, but for the purposes of this chapter only, shall exclude beaches bordering on and the water of the open Gulf of Mexico and the land lying beneath this water.

(12) "Littoral owner," in this chapter only, means the owner of any public or private upland bordered by or contiguous to coastal public land.

(13) Repealed by Acts 2011, 82nd Leg., R.S., Ch. 96, Sec. 19(1), eff. September 1, 2011.

(14) "Coastal zone" means the portion of the coastal area located within the boundaries established by the coastal management program under Section 33.053(a)(1).

(15) "Network" means the Texas Coastal Ocean Observation Network.