(1) "Approved" means confirmed by the commissioner of mines or his designee.

(2) "Authorized representative" means a person employed by the division and authorized by the director to conduct safety and health studies, equipment surveys, tests, and technical assistance visits and to perform other duties assigned by the director.

(3) "Board" means the coal mine board of examiners.

(4) "Coal mine" means an area of land and all structures, facilities, machinery, tools, equipment, shafts, slopes, tunnels, excavations, and other property, real or personal, placed upon, under, or above the surface of such land by any person and used in, to be used in, or resulting from the work of extracting in such bituminous coal, lignite, or anthracite from its natural deposits in the earth by any means or method, including the work of preparing the coal so extracted, and such term includes custom coal preparation facilities.

(5) "Commissioner" means the commissioner of mines.

(6) "Department" means the department of natural resources.

(7) "Director" means the director of the division of reclamation, mining, and safety in the department of natural resources.

(8) "Division" means the division of reclamation, mining, and safety in the department of natural resources.

(9) (a) "Mine" means:

(I) Any area of land from which minerals are extracted in nonliquid form or are extracted in a liquid form while workers are underground;

(II) Private ways and roads appurtenant to such area; and

(III) Lands, excavations, underground passageways, shafts, slopes, tunnels and workings, structures, facilities, equipment, machines, tools, or other property, including impoundments, retention dams, and tailing ponds, on the surface or underground, used in, or to be used in, or resulting from the work of extracting such minerals from their natural deposits in nonliquid form or, if in liquid form, used by workers underground or used or to be used in the milling of such minerals or the work of preparing coal or other minerals.

(b) "Mine" does not include the facilities defined in section 12-23-101 (3.5), C.R.S., nor does it include earthen dams, sand and gravel pits, clay pits, or rock and stone quarries, including surface limestone and dolomite quarries.

(10) "Miner" means any individual working in a mine.

(11) "Operator" means any owner, lessee, or other person who operates, controls, or supervises a mine or an independent contractor performing services or construction at such mine.

(12) "Tourist mine" means a nonproducing mine not regulated by the federal government that is open to the general public for tours.

(13) "Work of preparing the coal" means the breaking, crushing, sizing, cleaning, washing, drying, mixing, storing, and loading of bituminous coal, lignite, or anthracite and such other work of preparing such coal as is usually done by the operator of the coal mine.