Section 225 ILCS 715/3 - DefinitionsWherever used or referred to in this Act, unless a different meaning clearly appears from the context:
(a) "Reclamation" means conditioning areas affected by surface mining to achieve the purposes of this Act.(b) "Overburden" means all of the earth and other materials which lie above natural deposits of coal, clay, stone, sand, gravel, or other minerals, and also means such earth and other materials disturbed from their natural state in the process of surface mining.(c) "Surface mining" means the mining of any minerals by removing the overburden lying above natural deposits thereof, and mining directly from the natural deposits thereby exposed or the deposition of overburden therefrom.(d) "Operator" means any person, firm, partnership or corporation engaged in and controlling a surface mining operation, and includes political subdivisions and instrumentalities of the State of Illinois.(e) "Pit" means a tract of land, from which overburden has been or is being removed for the purpose of surface mining.(f) "Final cut" means the last pit created in a surface-mined area.(g) "High wall" means that side of the pit adjacent to unmined land.(h) "Affected land" means the area of land from which overburden is removed for surface mining or upon which overburden or refuse is deposited. It also means any area of land utilized for drainage ditches and haulage roads at surface coal mines.(i) "Refuse" means all waste materials directly connected with the cleaning and preparation of minerals mined by surface mining and discarded equipment and machinery.(j) "Slurry" means that portion of refuse separated from the mineral in the cleaning process, consisting of fines and clays in the preparation plant effluent, and which is readily pumpable.(k) "Gob" means that portion of refuse consisting of waste coal, rock, pyrites, slate, or other unmerchantable material of relatively large size which is separated from the mineral in the cleaning process.(l) "Acid forming materials" means those materials capable of producing toxic conditions when exposed.(m) "Toxic conditions" means any conditions that will not support higher forms of plant or animal life in any place in connection with or as a result of the completion of surface mining.(n) "Ridge" means a lengthened elevation of overburden created in the surface mining process.(o) "Peak" means a projecting point of overburden created in the surface mining process.(p) "Department" means Department of Natural Resources or such department, bureau, or commission as may lawfully succeed to the powers and duties of such Department.(q) "Director" means the Director of the Department of Natural Resources or such officer, bureau or commission as may lawfully succeed to the powers and duties of such Director.(r) "Darkened surface soil" means mineral horizons formed at or adjacent to the surface of the soil which are higher in organic matter content and visibly darker in color than the immediately underlying horizons.(s) "Aggregate mining industry" means producers, by surface mining method, of all minerals other than coal, including sand, gravel, silica sand, shale, clay, limestone and any other mineral which may be so mined.P.A. 89-445, eff. 2/7/1996; 91-938, eff. 1/11/2001.