208.2  Definitions.
  When used in this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires:
  1.  “Administrator” means the administrator of the division of soil conservation or a designee.
  2.  “Affected land” means the area of land from which overburden has been removed or upon which overburden has been deposited or land which has otherwise been disturbed, changed, influenced, or altered in any way in the course of mining, including processing and stockpile areas but not including roads.
  3.  “Committee” means the state soil conservation committee.
  4.  “Division” means the division of soil conservation within the department of agriculture and land stewardship.
  5.  “Exploration” means the mining of limited amounts of any mineral to determine the location, quantity, or quality of the mineral deposit.
  6.  “Highwall” means the unexcavated face of exposed overburden and mineral in a surface mine.
  7.  “Mine” or “mine site” means a site where mining is being conducted or has been conducted in the past.
  8.  “Mineral” means gypsum, clay, stone, sand, gravel, or other ores or mineral solids, except coal.
  9.  “Mining” means the excavation of gypsum, clay, stone, sand, gravel, or other ores or mineral solids, except coal, for sale or for processing or consumption in the regular operation of a business and shall include surface mining and underground mining.
  10.  “Mining operation” means activities conducted by an operator on a mine site relative to the excavation of minerals and shall include disturbing overburden, excavation, and processing of minerals, stockpiling and removal of minerals from a site, and all reclamation activities conducted on a mine site.
  11.  “Operator” means any person, firm, partnership, corporation, or political subdivision engaged in and controlling a mining operation.
  12.  “Overburden” means all of the earth and other materials which lie above natural mineral deposits and includes all earth and other materials disturbed from their natural state in the process of mining.
  13.  “Pit floor” or “quarry floor” means the lower limit of a surface excavation to extract minerals.
  14.  “Political subdivision” means any county, district, city, or other public agency within the state of Iowa.
  15.  “Reclamation” means the process of restoring disturbed lands to the premined uses of the lands or other productive uses.
  16.  “Surface mining” means mining by removing the overburden lying above the natural deposits and excavating directly from the natural deposits exposed, or by excavating directly from deposits lying exposed in their natural state and shall include dredge operations conducted in or on natural waterways or artificially created waterways within the state.
  17.  “Topsoil” means the natural medium located at the land surface with favorable characteristics for the growth of vegetation.
  18.  “Underground mining” means mining by digging or constructing access tunnels, adits, ramps, or shafts and excavating directly from the natural mineral deposits exposed.
[C24, 27, 31, 35, 39, §1244; C46, 50, 54, 58, 62, 66, §82.27; C71, 73, §82.27, 83A.2; C75, 77, 79, 81, §83A.2]
85 Acts, ch 137, §2 – 5; 86 Acts, ch 1245, §602, 2050
C93, §208.2
96 Acts, ch 1043, §2