Bill Text: MI HB6441 | 2009-2010 | 95th Legislature | Introduced

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Bill Title: Environmental protection; other; geological mapping and resource evaluation functions; transfer from department of natural resources and environment to western Michigan university. Amends secs. 60101, 60102, 60103, 60104, 60105, 60106, 60107, 60108, 62501 & 63101 of 1994 PA 451 (MCL 324.60101 et seq.) & repeals sec. 50 of 1846 RS 60 (MCL 322.350).

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 6-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2010-09-16 - Printed Bill Filed 09/16/2010 [HB6441 Detail]

Download: Michigan-2009-HB6441-Introduced.html

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HOUSE BILL No. 6441

 

September 15, 2010, Introduced by Reps. Lahti, Robert Jones, Lindberg, Nerat, McDowell and Dean and referred to the Committee on Tourism, Outdoor Recreation and Natural Resources.

 

     A bill to amend 1994 PA 451, entitled

 

"Natural resources and environmental protection act,"

 

by amending sections 60101, 60102, 60103, 60104, 60105, 60106,

 

60107, 60108, 62501, and 63101 (MCL 324.60101, 324.60102,

 

324.60103, 324.60104, 324.60105, 324.60106, 324.60107, 324.60108,

 

324.62501, and 324.63101), sections 60101, 60102, 60103, 60104,

 

60105, 60106, 60107, and 60108 as added by 1995 PA 57, section

 

62501 as amended by 1998 PA 467, and section 63101 as amended by

 

2004 PA 449; and to repeal acts and parts of acts.

 

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN ENACT:

 

     Sec. 60101. As used in this part, "state geologist" means the

 

chief of the geological survey division of the department."board of

 

trustees" means the board of trustees of western Michigan

 

university.

 

     Sec. 60102. The department Western Michigan university shall

 

maintain a department of geosciences. The Michigan geological

 

survey is established within the department of geosciences of

 

western Michigan university. The board of trustees shall control

 

and supervise the continuance and completion of the operation of

 

the Michigan geological survey of the state and for that purpose

 

may from time to time shall appoint or employ a state geologist

 

director of the Michigan geological survey and a person or persons

 

to assist in making the geological survey the director as the

 

department board of trustees considers necessary. The department

 

board of trustees shall determine the length of time and the

 

location where these persons shall be employed.

 

     Sec. 60103. The salary of the persons employed in the Michigan

 

geological survey shall be established by the department, board of

 

trustees and shall be payable only for services actually rendered.

 

The department board of trustees shall regulate all expenses

 

incident to the Michigan geological survey and may require reports

 

as the department board of trustees considers useful.

 

     Sec. 60104. The department shall make or cause to be made

 

Michigan geological survey shall continue to make a thorough

 

geological and mineralogical survey of the this state, which shall

 

may include a determination of the succession and arrangement,

 

thickness, and position of all strata and rocks; their mineral

 

character and contents and their economical uses; an investigation

 

of soils and subsoils and the determination of their character and

 

agricultural adaptation; and the investigation of all deposits of

 

brines, coal, marl, clay, gypsum, lime, petroleum, metals and

 

metallic ores, building stone, marble, gritstone, materials for

 

mortar and cement, mineral paint, and all other geological

 

productions of the geological world within the limits of this state

 

capable of being converted to the uses of humans.

 

     Sec. 60105. The department shall cause ample materials to be

 

collected Michigan geological survey shall provide for the

 

collection and conservation of cores, samples, and specimens for

 

the illustration of every division of the geology and mineralogy of

 

the this state. and shall label, arrange, and prepare the materials

 

for exhibition in suitable cases in the museums of the public

 

colleges and universities of the state and in a room in connection

 

with the state library.

 

     Sec. 60106. The department Michigan geological survey shall

 

prepare an annual report of progress and other reports, documents,

 

and maps as may be necessary to the fulfillment of its

 

responsibilities. the progress of the geological survey and, as

 

often as possible, a condensed statement of important and

 

interesting facts for general circulation. Upon completion of the

 

geological survey, the department shall prepare a complete memoir

 

of the geology of the state, including an account of all its

 

mineral and agricultural resources as is usual in works of that

 

character, a delineation of its geology on the map of the state,

 

and other diagrams and illustrations as necessary to set forth in a

 

creditable, intelligible, and, as far as possible, popular manner

 

the nature, location, and extent of the geological and agricultural

 

resources of the state. However, this report shall not contain to

 

any considerable extent compilations of and extracts from books

 

previously published.

 

     Sec. 60107. All notes, memoranda, compilations, collections,

 

specimens, diagrams, and illustrations that may be made in the

 

progress of the operation of the Michigan geological survey by the

 

person or persons engaged in conducting the geological survey are

 

the property of the this state and shall be under the control of

 

the department of geosciences of western Michigan university.

 

     Sec. 60108. To implement this part, the sum of $8,000.00 for

 

each year until the completion of the geological survey is hereby

 

appropriated to be drawn from the state treasury as needed. All

 

expenses of the department in implementing this part authorized by

 

law shall first be certified to be correct by the department, and

 

shall be paid out of the state treasury upon the warrant of the

 

state treasurer from the fund appropriated for that purpose.

 

However, this appropriation shall not be used for printing reports.

 

The Michigan geological survey may receive money or other assets to

 

implement this part from any of the following:

 

     (a) Funds appropriated by the legislature.

 

     (b) Federal, state, municipal, or private grants.

 

     (c) Any other source approved by the board of trustees.

 

     Sec. 62501. As used in this part:

 

     (a) "Artificial brine" means mineralized water formed by

 

dissolving rock salt or other readily soluble rocks or minerals.

 

     (b) "Brine well" means a well drilled or converted for the

 

purpose of producing natural or artificial brine.

 

     (c) "Department" means the department of environmental quality

 

natural resources and environment.

 

     (d) "Disposal well" means a well drilled or converted for

 

subsurface disposal of waste products or processed brine and its

 

related surface facilities.

 

     (e) "Exploratory purposes" means test well drilling for the

 

specific purpose of discovering or outlining an orebody or mineable

 

mineral resource.

 

     (f) "Fund" means the mineral well regulatory fund created in

 

section 62509b.

 

     (g) "Mineral well" means any well subject to this part.

 

     (h) "Natural brine" means naturally occurring mineralized

 

water other than potable or fresh water.

 

     (i) "Operator" means the person, whether owner or not,

 

supervising or responsible for the drilling, operating, repairing,

 

abandoning, or plugging of wells subject to this part.

 

     (j) "Owner" means the person who has the right to drill,

 

convert, or operate any well subject to this part.

 

     (k) "Pollution" means damage or injury from the loss, escape,

 

or unapproved disposal of any substance at any well subject to this

 

part.

 

     (l) "Storage well" means a well drilled into a subsurface

 

formation to develop an underground storage cavity for subsequent

 

use in storage operations. Storage well does not include a storage

 

well drilled pursuant to part 615.

 

     (m) "Supervisor of mineral wells" means the state geologist

 

director of the department or his or her designee.

 

     (n) "Surface waste" means damage to, injury to, or destruction

 

of surface waters, soils, animal, fish, and aquatic life, or

 

surface property from unnecessary seepage or loss incidental to or

 

resulting from drilling, equipping, or operating a well or wells

 

subject to this part.

 

     (o) "Test well" means a well, core hole, core test,

 

observation well, or other well drilled from the surface to

 

determine the presence of a mineral, mineral resource, ore, or rock

 

unit, or to obtain geological or geophysical information or other

 

subsurface data related to mineral exploration and extraction. Test

 

well does not include holes drilled in the operation of a quarry,

 

open pit, or underground mine, or any wells not related to mineral

 

exploration or extraction.

 

     (p) "Underground storage cavity" means a cavity formed by

 

dissolving rock salt or other readily soluble rock or mineral, by

 

nuclear explosion, or by any other method for the purpose of

 

storage or disposal.

 

     (q) "Underground waste" means damage or injury to potable

 

water, mineralized water, or other subsurface resources.

 

     (r) "Waste product" means waste or by-product resulting from

 

municipal or industrial operations or waste from any trade,

 

manufacture, business, or private pursuit that could cause

 

pollution and for which underground disposal may be feasible or

 

practical.

 

     Sec. 63101. As used in this part:

 

     (a) "Administratively complete" means an application for a

 

mining permit under this part that is determined by the department

 

to satisfy all of the conditions of this part and rules promulgated

 

under this part.

 

     (b) "Department" means the department of environmental quality

 

natural resources and environment.

 

     (c) "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.

 

     (d) "Metallic mineral" means ferrous ore or material mined for

 

its ferrous content.

 

     (e) "Metallic mineral operator" means a person who owns or

 

leases the plant and equipment utilized in a metallic mineral

 

mining area and is engaged in the business of mining metallic

 

minerals or preparing to engage in mining operations for metallic

 

minerals.

 

     (f) "Metallic product" means a commercially salable metallic

 

mineral in its final marketable form or state.

 

     (g) "Mineral" means any substance to be excavated from the

 

natural deposits on or in the earth for commercial, industrial, or

 

construction purposes, including gypsum, limestone, dolostone,

 

sandstone, shale, metallic mineral, or other solid materials.

 

However, mineral does not include clay, gravel, marl, peat, inland

 

sand or sand mined for commercial or industrial purposes, from sand

 

dune areas regulated under part 637, coal regulated under part 635,

 

or nonferrous metallic mineral regulated under part 632.

 

     (h) "Mining area" or "area subjected to mining" means an area

 

of land from which material is removed in connection with the

 

production or extraction of minerals by surface or open pit mining

 

methods, the lands on which material from that mining is deposited,

 

the lands on which beneficiating or treatment plants and auxiliary

 

facilities are located, the lands on which the water reservoirs

 

used in the mining process are located, and auxiliary lands which

 

are used.

 

     (i) "Operator" means a metallic mineral operator or other

 

persons engaged in or preparing to engage in mining operations for

 

the production of mineral products.

 

     (j) "Stockpile" means material, including, but not limited to,

 

surface overburden, rock, or lean ore, which in the process of

 

mineral mining and beneficiation or treatment has been removed from

 

the earth and stored on the surface, but excluding materials that

 

are being treated in the production of mineral products and the

 

mineral product that has been produced by that operation.

 

     (k) "Supervisor of reclamation" means the state geologist

 

director of the department or his or her designee.

 

     (l) "Surface or open pit mining" means the mining of more than

 

10,000 tons of a mineral or disturbing more than 1 acre of land a

 

year in the regular operation of a business by removing the

 

overburden lying above a natural deposit of a mineral and mining

 

directly from the natural deposit exposed or by mining directly

 

from a deposit lying exposed in the mineral's natural state.

 

Surface or open pit mining includes all 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.

 

     (m) "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 minerals

 

including any surrounding dikes constructed to contain the

 

material.

 

     Enacting section 1. Section 50 of 1846 RS 60, MCL 322.350, is

 

repealed.