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) "Beneficiation" , the dressing or processing of minerals for the purpose of regulating the size of the desired product, removing unwanted constituents, and improving the quality or purity of a desired product;
(3) "Commercial purpose" , the purpose of extracting minerals for their value in sales to other persons or for incorporation into a product;
(4) "Commission" , the Missouri mining commission in the department of natural resources created by section 444.520 ;
(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 or utility line, and demolition, excavation, land clearance, and moving of minerals or fill dirt in connection therewith;
(6) "Department" , the department of natural resources;
(7) "Director" , the staff director of the Missouri mining commission or his or her designee;
(8) "Excavation" , any operation in which earth, minerals, or other material in or on the ground is moved, removed, or otherwise displaced for purposes 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-velocity air to disintegrate and suction to remove earth and other materials. For purposes of this section, excavation or removal of overburden for purposes of mining for a commercial purpose or for purposes of reclamation of land subjected to surface mining is not included in this definition. Neither shall excavations of sand and gravel by political subdivisions using their own personnel and equipment or private individuals for personal use be included in this definition;
(9) "Fill dirt" , material removed from its natural location through mining or construction activity, which is a mixture of unconsolidated earthy material, which may include some minerals, and which is used to fill, 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 is not processed to extract mineral components of the mixture. Backfill material for use in completing reclamation is not included in this definition;
(10) "Land improvement" , work performed by or for a public or private owner or lessor of real property for purposes of improving the suitability of the property for construction at an undetermined future date, where specific 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 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, oil shales, cadmium, barium, nickel, cobalt, molybdenum, germanium, gallium, tellurium, selenium, vanadium, indium, mercury, uranium, rare earth elements, platinum group elements, manganese, phosphorus, sodium, titanium, zirconium, lithium, thorium, or tungsten; 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;
(12) "Mining" , the removal of overburden and extraction of underlying minerals or the extraction of minerals from exposed natural deposits for a commercial purpose, as defined by this section;
(13) "Operator" , any person, firm or corporation engaged in and controlling a surface mining operation;
(14) "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 (10) of this section;
(15) "Peak" , a projecting point of overburden created in the surface mining process;
(16) "Pit" , the place where minerals are being or have been mined by surface mining;
(17) "Public entity" , the state or any officer, official, authority, board, or commission of the state and any county, city, or other political subdivision of the state, or any institution supported in whole or in part by public funds;
(18) "Refuse" , all waste material directly connected with the cleaning and preparation of substance mined by surface mining;
(19) "Ridge" , a lengthened elevation of overburden created in the surface mining process;
(20) "Site" or "mining site" , any location or group of associated locations separated by a natural barrier where minerals are being surface mined by the same operator;
(21) "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. For purposes of the provisions of sections 444.760 to 444.790 , surface mining shall not include excavations to move minerals or fill dirt within the confines of the real property where excavation occurs or to remove minerals or fill dirt from the real property in preparation for construction at the site of excavation. No excavation of fill dirt shall be deemed surface mining regardless of the site of disposition or whether construction occurs at the site of excavation.