Terms Used In Montana Code > Title 82 > Chapter 4 - Reclamation

• Affected land: means the area of land and land covered by water that is disturbed by opencut operations. See Montana Code 82-4-403
• Affidavit: A written statement of facts confirmed by the oath of the party making it, before a notary or officer having authority to administer oaths.
• Affidavit: means a sworn written declaration made before an officer authorized to administer oaths or an unsworn written declaration made under penalty of perjury as provided in 1-6-105. See Montana Code 1-1-203
• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Amendment: means a change to an approved operating or reclamation plan. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Amendment: means a change to the approved permit. See Montana Code 82-4-403
• Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
• Appraisal: A determination of property value.
• Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
• Bankruptcy: Refers to statutes and judicial proceedings involving persons or businesses that cannot pay their debts and seek the assistance of the court in getting a fresh start. Under the protection of the bankruptcy court, debtors may discharge their debts, perhaps by paying a portion of each debt. Bankruptcy judges preside over these proceedings.
• Baseline: Projection of the receipts, outlays, and other budget amounts that would ensue in the future without any change in existing policy. Baseline projections are used to gauge the extent to which proposed legislation, if enacted into law, would alter current spending and revenue levels.
• Board: means the board of environmental review provided for in 2-15-3502. See Montana Code 82-4-103
• Board: means the board of environmental review provided for in 2-15-3502. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Board: means the board of environmental review provided for in 2-15-3502. See Montana Code 82-4-403
• Certification: means , with regard to tailings storage facilities, a statement of opinion by a professional engineer that the work on a tailings storage facility has been conducted in accordance with the normal standard of care within dam engineering practice. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Coal: means a combustible carbonaceous rock formed from the compaction and induration of variously altered plant remains. See Montana Code 82-1-111
• Common law: The legal system that originated in England and is now in use in the United States. It is based on judicial decisions rather than legislative action.
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• Completeness: means that an application contains information addressing each applicable permit requirement as listed in this part or rules adopted pursuant to this part in sufficient detail for the department to make a decision as to adequacy of the application to meet the requirements of this part. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Constructor: means the company or companies constructing the built components of a tailings storage facility, including but not limited to embankment dams, surface water diversion structures, tailings distribution systems, reclaim water systems, and monitoring instrumentation. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Continuance: Putting off of a hearing ot trial until a later time.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal defendant.
• Cyanide ore-processing reagent: means cyanide or a cyanide compound used as a reagent in leaching operations. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
• Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
• Department: means the department of environmental quality provided for in 2-15-3501. See Montana Code 82-4-103
• Department: means the department of environmental quality provided for in 2-15-3501. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Department: means the department of environmental quality provided for in 2-15-3501. See Montana Code 82-4-403
• Dependent: A person dependent for support upon another.
• Disturbed land: means the area of land or surface water that has been disturbed, beginning at the date of the issuance of the permit. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Donor: The person who makes a gift.
• Engineer of record: means a qualified engineer who is the lead designer for a tailings storage facility. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. ^{Source: U.S. Courts}
• Escrow: Money given to a third party to be held for payment until certain conditions are met.
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Expansion: means , with regard to tailings storage facilities, a change in the size, height, or configuration of or a contiguous addition to an existing tailings storage facility that increases or may increase the storage capacity of the impoundment above the currently permitted capacity. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Exploration: means :

  (a)all activities that are conducted on or beneath the surface of lands and that result in material disturbance of the surface for the purpose of determining the presence, location, extent, depth, grade, and economic viability of mineralization in those lands, if any, other than mining for production and economic exploitation; and

  (b)all roads made for the purpose of facilitating exploration, except as noted in 82-4-310. See Montana Code 82-4-303

• Fair market value: The price at which an asset would change hands in a transaction between a willing, informed buyer and a willing, informed seller.
• Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
• Foreclosure: A legal process in which property that is collateral or security for a loan may be sold to help repay the loan when the loan is in default. ^{Source: OCC}
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• Gas: means all natural gases and all other fluid hydrocarbons, including methane gas or any other natural gas found in any coal formation, as produced at the wellhead and not defined as oil in subsection (3). See Montana Code 82-1-111
• Independent review engineer: means a licensed engineer who is a recognized expert in tailings storage facility design, construction, operation, and closure. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Injunction: An order of the court prohibiting (or compelling) the performance of a specific act to prevent irreparable damage or injury.
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Knowingly: means only a knowledge that the facts exist which bring the act or omission within the provisions of this code. See Montana Code 1-1-204
• Landowner: means the holder of legal title to land subjected to an opencut operation. See Montana Code 82-4-403
• Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). ^{Source: OCC}
• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
• Litigation: A case, controversy, or lawsuit. Participants (plaintiffs and defendants) in lawsuits are called litigants.
• Materials: means bentonite, clay, scoria, peat, sand, soil, gravel, or mixtures of those substances. See Montana Code 82-4-403
• Maximum credible earthquake: means the most severe earthquake that can be expected at a site based on geologic and seismological evidence, including a review of all historic earthquake data of events sufficiently nearby to influence the site, all faults in the area, and attenuations from causative faults to the site. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Mineral: means mineral as defined in 82-4-203. See Montana Code 82-4-103
• Mineral: means any ore, rock, or substance, other than oil, gas, bentonite, clay, coal, sand, gravel, peat, soil materials, or uranium, that is taken from below the surface or from the surface of the earth for the purpose of milling, concentration, refinement, smelting, manufacturing, or other subsequent use or processing or for stockpiling for future use, refinement, or smelting. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Observational method: means a continuous, managed, and integrated process of design, construction control, monitoring, and review enabling appropriate, previously defined modifications to be incorporated during and after construction. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Occupied dwelling unit: means a structure with permanent water and sewer facilities that is used as a home, residence, or sleeping place by at least one person who maintains a household that is lived in as a primary residence. See Montana Code 82-4-403
• Oil: means crude petroleum oil and other hydrocarbons, regardless of gravity, that are produced at the wellhead in liquid form by ordinary production methods and that are not the result of condensation of gas before or after it leaves the reservoir. See Montana Code 82-1-111
• Opencut operation: means activities conducted for the primary purpose of sale or utilization of materials, including:

  (a)mine site preparation;

  (b)(i) removing the overburden and mining directly from the exposed natural deposits; or

  (ii)mining directly from natural deposits of materials;

  (c)processing of materials mined from the natural deposits, except that processing facilities located more than 300 feet from where materials were mined or are permitted to be mined are not part of the opencut operation;

  (d)transporting, depositing, staging, and stockpiling of overburden and materials unless the activity occurs more than 300 feet from where the materials were mined or are permitted to be mined;

  (e)storing or stockpiling of materials at processing facilities that are part of the opencut operation;

  (f)reclamation of affected land; and

  (g)parking or staging of vehicles, equipment, or supplies unless:

  (i)the activity is separated from other opencut operations by at least 25 feet and is connected to the opencut operation by a single road that is no more than 25 feet wide; or

  (ii)the activity is inside the construction disturbance area shown on a construction project plan. See Montana Code 82-4-403

• Operation: means all of the premises, facilities, railroad loops, roads, power lines, and equipment used in the process of producing and removing mineral from a designated strip-mine or underground-mine area. See Montana Code 82-4-103
• Operator: means a person who intends to operate a new strip mine or new underground mine involving the removal of more than 10,000 cubic yards of mineral or overburden. See Montana Code 82-4-103
• Operator: means a person who has an operating permit issued under 82-4-335. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Operator: means a person who holds a permit issued pursuant to this part. See Montana Code 82-4-403
• Ore processing: means milling, heap leaching, flotation, vat leaching, or other standard hard-rock mineral concentration processes. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Overburden: means the earth that lies above a natural deposit of materials. See Montana Code 82-4-403
• Oversight: Committee review of the activities of a Federal agency or program.
• Panel: means the tailings storage facility independent review panel created for each new or expanded tailings storage facility. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Person: means a person, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity or any political subdivision or agency of the state. See Montana Code 82-4-103
• Person: means any person, corporation, firm, association, partnership, or other legal entity engaged in exploration for or mining of minerals on or below the surface of the earth, reprocessing of tailings or waste materials, or operation of a hard-rock mill. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Person: means :

  (a)a natural person;

  (b)a firm, association, partnership, cooperative, or corporation;

  (c)a department, agency, or instrumentality of the state or any governmental subdivision; or

  (d)any other entity. See Montana Code 82-4-403

• Person: includes a corporation or other entity as well as a natural person. See Montana Code 1-1-201
• Placer deposit: means :

  (a)naturally occurring, scattered, or unconsolidated valuable minerals in gravel, glacial, eolian, colluvial, or alluvial deposits lying above bedrock; or

  (b)all forms of deposit except veins of quartz and other rock in place. See Montana Code 82-4-303

• Placer or dredge mining: means the mining of minerals from a placer deposit by a person or persons. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Plaintiff: The person who files the complaint in a civil lawsuit.
• Plan of operation: means a plan that:

  (a)meets the requirements of 82-4-434; and

  (b)contains a description of current land use, topographical data, hydrologic data, soils data, proposed mine areas, proposed mining and processing operations, proposed reclamation, and appropriate maps. See Montana Code 82-4-403

• Practicable: means available and capable of being implemented after taking into consideration cost, existing technology, and logistics in light of overall project purposes. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Precedent: A court decision in an earlier case with facts and law similar to a dispute currently before a court. Precedent will ordinarily govern the decision of a later similar case, unless a party can show that it was wrongly decided or that it differed in some significant way.
• Preparatory work: means all onsite disturbances, excluding prospecting, associated with the initiation of a new strip mine or underground mine, including but not limited to the construction of railroad spurs or loops, buildings to house mining operations, roads, storage and train load-out facilities, transmission lines, erection of draglines and loading shovels, and other associated facilities. See Montana Code 82-4-103
• Presiding officer: A majority-party Senator who presides over the Senate and is charged with maintaining order and decorum, recognizing Members to speak, and interpreting the Senate's rules, practices and precedents.
• Process: means a writ or summons issued in the course of judicial proceedings. See Montana Code 1-1-202
• Processing facilities: means :

  (a)crushers, screens, and pug mills;

  (b)asphalt, wash, and concrete plants;

  (c)treatment, sedimentation, or retention areas for processing facilities; and

  (d)areas receiving washout from vehicles and equipment using the processing facilities. See Montana Code 82-4-403

• Professional engineer: means a registered professional engineer licensed to practice in Montana under Title 37, chapter 67, part 3. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Property: means real and personal property. See Montana Code 1-1-205
• Public law: A public bill or joint resolution that has passed both chambers and been enacted into law. Public laws have general applicability nationwide.
• Qualified engineer: means a professional engineer who has a minimum of 10 years of direct experience with the design and construction of tailings storage facilities and has the appropriate professional and educational credentials to effectively determine appropriate parameters for the safe design, construction, operation, and closure of a tailings storage facility. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• Real property: means lands, tenements, hereditaments, and possessory title to public lands. See Montana Code 1-1-205
• Reclamation: means the reconditioning of affected land to make the area suitable for productive use, including but not limited to forestry, agriculture, grazing, wildlife, recreation, or residential or industrial development. See Montana Code 82-4-403
• Reclamation plan: means the operator's written proposal, as required and approved by the department, for reclamation of the land that will be disturbed. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Remainder: An interest in property that takes effect in the future at a specified time or after the occurrence of some event, such as the death of a life tenant.
• Rock products: means decorative rock, building stone, riprap, mineral aggregates, and other minerals produced by typical quarrying activities or collected from or just below the ground surface that do not contain sulfides with the potential to produce acid, toxic, or otherwise pollutive solutions. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Service of process: The service of writs or summonses to the appropriate party.
• Settlement: Parties to a lawsuit resolve their difference without having a trial. Settlements often involve the payment of compensation by one party in satisfaction of the other party's claims.
• Small miner: means a person, firm, or corporation that engages in mining activity that is not exempt from this part pursuant to 82-4-310, that engages in the business of reprocessing of tailings or waste materials, that, except as provided in 82-4-310, knowingly allows other persons to engage in mining activities on land owned or controlled by the person, firm, or corporation, that does not hold an operating permit under 82-4-343 or 82-4-335 except for a permit issued under 82-4-335(2) or an operating permit that meets the criteria of subsection (30)(c) of this section, and that conducts:

  (i)an operation that results in not more than 5 acres of the earth's surface being disturbed and unreclaimed; or

  (ii)two operations that disturb and leave unreclaimed less than 5 acres for each operation if the respective mining properties are:

  (A)the only operations engaged in by the person, firm, or corporation; and

  (B)at least 1 mile apart at their closest point. See Montana Code 82-4-303

• Soil: means the dark or root-bearing surface matter that has been generated through time by the interaction of biological activity, climate, topography, and parent material and that is capable of sustaining plant growth and is recognized and identified as such by standard authorities and methods. See Montana Code 82-4-403
• Soil materials: means earth material found in the upper soil layers that will support plant growth. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Strip mining: means any part of the process followed in the production of mineral by the opencut method, including mining by the auger method or any similar method that penetrates a mineral deposit and removes mineral directly through a series of openings made by a machine that enters the deposit from a surface excavation or any other method or process in which the strata or overburden is removed or displaced in order to recover the mineral. See Montana Code 82-4-103
• Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
• Summons: Another word for subpoena used by the criminal justice system.
• Surface mining: means all or any part of the process involved in mining of minerals by removing the overburden and mining directly from the mineral deposits exposed, including but not limited to open-pit mining of minerals naturally exposed at the surface of the earth, mining by the auger method, and all similar methods by which earth or minerals exposed at the surface are removed in the course of mining. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Tailings: means the residual materials remaining after a milling process that separates the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction of an ore mined by an operator. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Tailings storage facility: means a facility that temporarily or permanently stores tailings, including the impoundment, embankment, tailings distribution works, reclaim water works, monitoring devices, storm water diversions, and other ancillary structures. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Temporary restraining order: Prohibits a person from an action that is likely to cause irreparable harm. This differs from an injunction in that it may be granted immediately, without notice to the opposing party, and without a hearing. It is intended to last only until a hearing can be held.
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• Transcript: A written, word-for-word record of what was said, either in a proceeding such as a trial or during some other conversation, as in a transcript of a hearing or oral deposition.
• Underground mining: means any part of the process that is followed in the production of a mineral and that uses vertical or horizontal shafts, slopes, drifts, or incline planes connected with excavations penetrating the mineral stratum or strata. See Montana Code 82-4-103
• Underground mining: means all methods of mining other than surface mining. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Vegetative cover: means the type of vegetation, grass, shrubs, trees, or any other form of natural cover considered suitable at time of reclamation. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Venue: The geographical location in which a case is tried.
• Water conveyance facilities: means existing diversions, aqueducts, canals, ditches, drains, flumes, headgates, syphons, or other structures or infrastructure actively used to facilitate the beneficial use of a water right under Title 85. See Montana Code 82-4-403
• Willfully: when applied to the intent with which an act is done or omitted, means a purpose or willingness to commit the act or make the omission referred to. See Montana Code 1-1-204
• Writing: includes printing. See Montana Code 1-1-203