The Florida Senate

378.403  Definitions.--As used in this part:

(1)  "Agency" means an official, committee, department, commission, officer, division, authority, bureau, council, board, section, or unit of government within the state, including a county, municipal, or other local or regional entity or special district.

(2)  "Annual report" means a detailed report, including maps and aerial photographs, submitted for each mine, which describes and delineates mining operations and reclamation or restoration activities undertaken in the previous calendar year.

(3)  "Department" means the Department of Environmental Protection.

(4)  "Existing mine" means any area upon which an operation is being conducted, or has been conducted, on October 1, 1986.

(5)  "Extraction" or "resource extraction" means the removal of resources from their location so as to make them suitable for commercial, industrial, or construction use; but does not include excavation solely in aid of onsite farming or onsite construction, nor the process of searching, prospecting, exploring, or investigating for resources by drilling.

(6)  "Fuller's earth clay" means clay possessing a high absorptive capacity consisting largely of montmorillonite or palygorskite. Fuller's earth clay includes attapulgite.

(7)  "Heavy minerals" means those resources found in conjunction with sand deposits which have a specific gravity of not less than 2.8, and includes an admixture of such resources as zircon, staurolite, and titanium minerals as generally mined in this state.

(8)  "Limestone" means any extracted material composed principally of calcium or magnesium carbonate.

(9)  "Local government" means any county or municipality.

(10)  "Mine" means an area of land upon which mining operations have been conducted, are being conducted, or are planned to be conducted, as the term is commonly used in the trade.

(11)  "New mine" means any mine that is not an existing mine.

(12)  "Operation" means any activity, other than prospecting, necessary for site preparation, extraction, waste disposal, storage, or reclamation.

(13)  "Operator" means any person engaged in an operation.

(14)  "Overburden" means soil and rock removed to gain access to the resource in the process of extraction and means such soil or rock before or after its removal.

(15)  "Reclamation" means the reasonable rehabilitation of land where resource extraction has occurred.

(16)  "Resource" means soil, clay, peat, stone, gravel, sand, limerock, metallic ore, or any other solid substance of commercial value found in natural deposits on or in the earth, except phosphate, which is regulated by part III.

(17)  "Secretary" means the Secretary of Environmental Protection.

(18)  "Wetlands" means any area having dominant vegetation as defined and listed in ¹Department of Environmental Regulation ²rule 17-4.022, Florida Administrative Code, regardless of whether the area is within the ¹Department of Environmental Regulation's jurisdiction or whether the water bodies are connected.

History.--s. 1, ch. 86-294; s. 324, ch. 94-356; s. 4, ch. 95-215.

¹Note.--Section 3, ch. 93-213, transferred all existing legal authorities and actions of the Department of Environmental Regulation and the Department of Natural Resources to the Department of Environmental Protection.

²Note.--Rule 17-4.022 has been transferred to another section in the Florida Administrative Code.