444.765. Definitions.
Definitions.
444.765. Wherever used or referred to in sections 444.760 to 444.790,unless a different meaning clearly appears from the context, the followingterms mean:
(1) "Affected land", the pit area or area from which overburden shallhave been removed, or upon which overburden has been deposited afterSeptember 28, 1971. When mining is conducted underground, affected landmeans any excavation or removal of overburden required to create access tomine openings, except that areas of disturbance encompassed by the actualunderground openings for air shafts, portals, adits and haul roads inaddition to disturbances within fifty feet of any openings for haul roads,portals or adits shall not be considered affected land. Sites which exceedthe excluded areas by more than one acre for underground mining operationsshall obtain a permit for the total extent of affected lands with noexclusions as required under sections 444.760 to 444.790;
(2) "Beneficiation", the dressing or processing of minerals for thepurpose of regulating the size of the desired product, removing unwantedconstituents, and improving the quality or purity of a desired product;
(3) "Commercial purpose", the purpose of extracting minerals fortheir value in sales to other persons or for incorporation into a product;
(4) "Commission", the land reclamation commission in the departmentof natural resources;
(5) "Construction", construction, erection, alteration, maintenance,or repair of any facility including but not limited to any building,structure, highway, road, bridge, viaduct, water or sewer line, pipeline orutility line, and demolition, excavation, land clearance, and moving ofminerals or fill dirt in connection therewith;
(6) "Department", the department of natural resources;
(7) "Director", the staff director of the land reclamationcommission;
(8) "Excavation", any operation in which earth, minerals, or othermaterial in or on the ground is moved, removed, or otherwise displaced forpurposes of construction at the site of excavation, by means of any tools,equipment, or explosives and includes, but is not limited to, backfilling,grading, trenching, digging, ditching, drilling, well-drilling, auguring,boring, tunneling, scraping, cable or pipe plowing, plowing-in, pulling-in,ripping, driving, demolition of structures, and the use of high-velocityair to disintegrate and suction to remove earth and other materials. Forpurposes of this section, excavation or removal of overburden for purposesof mining for a commercial purpose or for purposes of reclamation of landsubjected to surface mining is not included in this definition. Neithershall excavations of sand and gravel by political subdivisions using theirown personnel and equipment or private individuals for personal use beincluded in this definition;
(9) "Fill dirt", material removed from its natural location throughmining or construction activity, which is a mixture of unconsolidatedearthy material, which may include some minerals, and which is used tofill, raise, or level the surface of the ground at the site of disposition,which may be at the site it was removed or on other property, and which isnot processed to extract mineral components of the mixture. Backfillmaterial for use in completing reclamation is not included in thisdefinition;
(10) "Land improvement", work performed by or for a public or privateowner or lessor of real property for purposes of improving the suitabilityof the property for construction at an undetermined future date, wherespecific plans for construction do not currently exist;
(11) "Mineral", a constituent of the earth in a solid state which,when extracted from the earth, is usable in its natural form or is capableof conversion into a usable form as a chemical, an energy source, or rawmaterial for manufacturing or construction material. For the purposes ofthis section, this definition includes barite, tar sands, and oil shales,but does not include iron, lead, zinc, gold, silver, coal, surface orsubsurface water, fill dirt, natural oil or gas together with otherchemicals recovered therewith;
(12) "Mining", the removal of overburden and extraction of underlyingminerals or the extraction of minerals from exposed natural deposits for acommercial purpose, as defined by this section;
(13) "Operator", any person, firm or corporation engaged in andcontrolling a surface mining operation;
(14) "Overburden", all of the earth and other materials which lieabove natural deposits of minerals; and also means such earth and othermaterials disturbed from their natural state in the process of surfacemining other than what is defined in subdivision (10) of this section;
(15) "Peak", a projecting point of overburden created in the surfacemining process;
(16) "Pit", the place where minerals are being or have been mined bysurface mining;
(17) "Public entity", the state or any officer, official, authority,board, or commission of the state and any county, city, or other politicalsubdivision of the state, or any institution supported in whole or in partby public funds;
(18) "Refuse", all waste material directly connected with thecleaning and preparation of substance mined by surface mining;
(19) "Ridge", a lengthened elevation of overburden created in thesurface mining process;
(20) "Site" or "mining site", any location or group of associatedlocations separated by a natural barrier where minerals are being surfacemined by the same operator;
(21) "Surface mining", the mining of minerals for commercial purposesby removing the overburden lying above natural deposits thereof, and miningdirectly from the natural deposits thereby exposed, and shall includemining of exposed natural deposits of such minerals over which nooverburden lies and, after August 28, 1990, the surface effects ofunderground mining operations for such minerals. For purposes of theprovisions of sections 444.760 to 444.790, surface mining shall not includeexcavations to move minerals or fill dirt within the confines of the realproperty where excavation occurs or to remove minerals or fill dirt fromthe real property in preparation for construction at the site ofexcavation. No excavation of fill dirt shall be deemed surface miningregardless of the site of disposition or whether construction occurs at thesite of excavation.
(L. 1971 H.B. 519 § 3, A.L. 1990 H.B. 1584, A.L. 2001 H.B. 453, A.L. 2005 H.B. 824, A.L. 2009 H.B. 246)