Section 444.765

Title XXIX OWNERSHIP AND CONVEYANCE OF PROPERTY

Chapter 444

Effective - 28 Aug 2001, 4 histories, see footnote   (history) 

  444.765.  Definitions. — Wherever used or referred to in sections 444.760 to 444.790, unless a different meaning clearly appears from the context, the following terms mean:

  (1) "Affected land", the pit area or area from which overburden shall have been removed, or upon which overburden has been deposited after September 28, 1971. When mining is conducted underground, affected land means any excavation or removal of overburden required to create access to mine openings, except that areas of disturbance encompassed by the actual underground openings for air shafts, portals, adits and haul roads in addition to disturbances within fifty feet of any openings for haul roads, portals or adits shall not be considered affected land. Sites which exceed the excluded areas by more than one acre for underground mining operations shall obtain a permit for the total extent of affected lands with no exclusions as required under sections 444.760 to 444.790;

  (2) "Commission", the land reclamation commission in the department of natural resources;

  (3) "Director", the staff director of the land reclamation commission;

  (4) "Mineral", a constituent of the earth in a solid state which, when extracted from the earth, is usable in its natural form or is capable of conversion into a usable form as a chemical, an energy source, or raw material for manufacturing or construction material. For the purposes of this section, this definition includes barite, tar sands, and oil shales, but does not include iron, lead, zinc, gold, silver, coal, surface or subsurface water, fill dirt, natural oil or gas together with other chemicals recovered therewith;

  (5) "Operator", any person, firm or corporation engaged in and controlling a surface mining operation;

  (6) "Overburden", all of the earth and other materials which lie above natural deposits of minerals; and also means such earth and other materials disturbed from their natural state in the process of surface mining other than what is defined in subdivision (4) of this section;

  (7) "Peak", a projecting point of overburden created in the surface mining process;

  (8) "Pit", the place where minerals are being or have been mined by surface mining;

  (9) "Refuse", all waste material directly connected with the cleaning and preparation of substance mined by surface mining;

  (10) "Ridge", a lengthened elevation of overburden created in the surface mining process;

  (11) "Site" or "mining site", any location or group of associated locations where minerals are being surface mined by the same operator;

  (12) "Surface mining", the mining of minerals for commercial purposes by removing the overburden lying above natural deposits thereof, and mining directly from the natural deposits thereby exposed, and shall include mining of exposed natural deposits of such minerals over which no overburden lies and, after August 28, 1990, the surface effects of underground mining operations for such minerals.

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(L. 1971 H.B. 519 § 3, A.L. 1990 H.B. 1584, A.L. 2001 H.B. 453)