Definitions.

As used in this part, the term:

(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) “Borrow pit” means an area of land upon which excavation of surface resources has been conducted, is being conducted, or is planned to be conducted, as the term is commonly used in the mining trade, and is not considered a mine. Such resources are limited to soil, organic soil, sand, or clay that can be removed with construction excavating equipment and loaded on a haul truck with no additional processing.

(4) “Department” means the Department of Environmental Protection.

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

(6) “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.

(7) “Fuller’s earth clay” means clay possessing a high absorptive capacity consisting largely of montmorillonite or palygorskite. Fuller’s earth clay includes attapulgite.

(8) “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.

(9) “Limestone” means any extracted material composed principally of calcium or magnesium carbonate.

(10) “Local government” means any county or municipality.

(11) “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.

(12) “New mine” means any mine that is not an existing mine.

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

(14) “Operator” means any person engaged in an operation.

(15) “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.

(16) “Peat” means a naturally occurring substance derived primarily from plant materials in a range of decomposing conditions and formed in a water-saturated environment.

(17) “Reclamation” means the reasonable rehabilitation of land where resource extraction has occurred.

(18) “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.

(19) “Secretary” means the Secretary of Environmental Protection.

(20) “Wetlands” means any area as defined in s. 373.019, as delineated using the methodology adopted by rule and ratified pursuant to s. 373.421(1). For areas included in an approved conceptual reclamation plan or modification application submitted prior to July 1, 1994, wetlands means any area having dominant vegetation as defined and listed in rule 62-301.200, Florida Administrative Code, regardless of whether the area is within the department’s jurisdiction or whether the water bodies are connected.