45th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - second session, 2002
RELATING TO MINING; CHANGING THE DEFINITIONS OF "MINERAL" AND "MINING" IN THE NEW MEXICO MINING ACT.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO:
Section 1. Section 69-36-3 NMSA 1978 (being Laws 1993, Chapter 315, Section 3) is amended to read:
"69-36-3. DEFINITIONS.--As used in the New Mexico Mining Act:
A. "affected area" means the area outside of the permit area where the land surface, surface water, ground water and air resources are impacted by mining operations within the permit area;
B. "commission" means the mining commission established in the New Mexico Mining Act;
C. "director" means the director of the division or his designee;
D. "division" means the mining and minerals division of the energy, minerals and natural resources department;
E. "existing mining operation" means an extraction
operation that produced marketable minerals for a total of at
least two years between January 1, 1970 and [the effective
date of the New Mexico Mining Act] June 18, 1993;
F. "exploration" means the act of searching for or
investigating a mineral deposit, including sinking shafts,
tunneling, drilling core and bore holes, digging pits, making
cuts and other works for the purpose of extracting samples
prior to commencement of development or extraction operations
and the building of roads, access ways and other facilities
related to such work. [however] "Exploration" does not include
activities that cause no or very little surface disturbance,
such as airborne surveys and photographs; use of instruments
or devices that are hand carried or otherwise transported over
the surface to perform magnetic, radioactive or other tests
and measurements; boundary or claim surveying; and location
work or other work that causes no greater disturbance than is
caused by ordinary lawful use of the area by persons not
engaged in exploration [are excluded from the meaning of
"exploration"];
G. "mineral" means a nonliving commodity that is
extracted from the earth for use or conversion into a saleable
or usable product, but does not include clays, adobe,
flagstone, potash, sand, gravel, caliche, borrow dirt, quarry
rock used as aggregate for construction, coal, surface water
or subsurface water, geothermal resources, oil and natural gas
together with other chemicals recovered with them,
[commodities] byproduct materials and wastes that are actually
regulated by the federal nuclear regulatory commission,
commodities produced from an operation or portion of an
operation actually regulated by the federal nuclear regulatory
commission or waste regulated under Subtitle C of the federal
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976;
H. "mining" means the process of obtaining useful
minerals from the earth's crust or from previously disposed or
abandoned mining wastes, including exploration, open-cut
mining and surface operation, the disposal of refuse from
underground and in situ mining, mineral transportation,
concentrating, milling, evaporation, leaching and other
processing. "Mining" does not [mean] include the exploration
and extraction of potash, sand, gravel, caliche, borrow dirt
[and] or quarry rock used as aggregate in construction; the
exploration and extraction of natural petroleum in a liquid or
gaseous state by means of wells or pipes; the development or
extraction of coal; the extraction of geothermal resources;
smelting, refining, cleaning, preparation, transportation or
other off-site operations not conducted on permit areas; or
[the extraction, processing or disposal of commodities,
byproduct materials or wastes or other activities] an
operation or portion of an operation actually regulated by the
federal nuclear regulatory commission;
I. "new mining operation" means a mining operation
that engages in a development or extraction operation after
[the effective date of the New Mexico Mining Act] June 18,
1993 and that is not an existing mining operation;
J. "permit area" means the geographical area defined in the permit for a new mining operation or for an existing mining operation on which mining operations are conducted or cause disturbance; and
K. "reclamation" means the employment during and after a mining operation of measures designed to mitigate the disturbance of affected areas and permit areas and, to the extent practicable, provide for the stabilization of a permit area following closure that will minimize future impact to the environment from the mining operation and protect air and water resources."