Michigan Compiled Laws, Chapter 324. Natural Resources and Environmental Protection § 324.63101

(a) “Department” means the department of environmental quality.

(b) “Ferrous mineral” or “mineral” means ferrous ore or material mined for its ferrous content.

(c) “Ferrous mineral operator” or “operator” means a person who owns or leases the plant and equipment utilized in a mining area and is engaged in the business of mining ferrous minerals or preparing to engage in mining operations.

(d) “Ferrous product” means a commercially salable ferrous mineral in its final marketable form or state.

(e) “Life of the mine” means the period of time from issuance of a permit under this part through the completion of reclamation as required by this part.

(f) “Mining area” or “area subjected to mining” means land from which material is removed in connection with the production or extraction of ferrous minerals by surface or open pit mining methods, on which material from that mining is deposited, on which beneficiating or treatment plants and auxiliary facilities are located, or on which the water reservoirs used in the mining operation are located, and includes auxiliary land that is used for these purposes.

(g) “Mining operation” means a ferrous mineral mining operation.

(h) “Stockpile” means material, including, but not limited to, surface overburden, rock, or lean ore, that in the process of ferrous mineral mining and beneficiation or treatment has been removed from the earth and stored on the surface. However, stockpile does not include materials that are being treated in the production of mineral products and the mineral product that has been produced by that operation.

(i) “Supervisor of reclamation” means the department.

(j) “Surface or open pit mining” means the mining of more than 10,000 tons of a ferrous mineral or disturbing more than 1 acre of land a year in the regular operation of a business either by removing the overburden lying above a natural deposit of a ferrous mineral and mining directly from the natural deposit exposed or by mining directly from a deposit lying exposed in the ferrous mineral's natural state. Surface or open pit mining includes all ferrous mineral mining below the water table or which will upon cessation of mining result in creating a body of water of any size. Surface or open pit mining does not include excavation or grading preliminary to a construction project.

(k) “Tailings basin” means land on which is deposited, by hydraulic or other means, the material that is separated from the mineral product in the beneficiation or treatment of ferrous minerals including any surrounding dikes constructed to contain the material.