Terms Used In Montana Code > Title 82 > Chapter 4 > Part 3 - Metal Mine Reclamation

• 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
• 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.
• Amendment: means a change to an approved operating or reclamation plan. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• 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.
• 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
• Board: means the board of environmental review provided for in 2-15-3502. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• 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
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• 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.
• Department: means the department of environmental quality provided for in 2-15-3501. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• 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
• Engineer of record: means a qualified engineer who is the lead designer for a tailings storage facility. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• 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.
• 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}
• 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
• Gift: A voluntary transfer or conveyance of property without consideration, or for less than full and adequate consideration based on fair market value.
• 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
• 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.
• 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 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
• 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
• Operator: means a person who has an operating permit issued under 82-4-335. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• Ore processing: means milling, heap leaching, flotation, vat leaching, or other standard hard-rock mineral concentration processes. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• 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
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• 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
• 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.
• 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.
• Process: means a writ or summons issued in the course of judicial proceedings. See Montana Code 1-1-202
• 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
• 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
• 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.
• 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 materials: means earth material found in the upper soil layers that will support plant growth. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• State: when applied to the different parts of the United States, includes the District of Columbia and the territories. See Montana Code 1-1-201
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• 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
• Underground mining: means all methods of mining other than surface mining. See Montana Code 82-4-303
• United States: includes the District of Columbia and the territories. See Montana Code 1-1-201
• 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.
• Writing: includes printing. See Montana Code 1-1-203