Sec. 134.066.  WRITTEN FINDINGS REQUIRED.  (a)  The commission may not approve an application for a permit or a permit revision unless it finds, in writing, using the information in the application or information otherwise available that will be documented in the approval and made available to the applicant, that:
(1)  the application is accurate and complete and complies with this chapter;
(2)  the applicant has demonstrated that the reclamation required by this chapter can be accomplished under the reclamation plan contained in the application;
(3)  the commission has assessed the probable cumulative impact that all anticipated surface coal mining in the area will have on the hydrologic balance, and the proposed operation has been designed to prevent material damage to the hydrologic balance outside the permit area;
(4)  the area proposed to be mined is not included in an area:
(A)  designated unsuitable for surface coal mining under this chapter;  or
(B)  under study for this designation in an administrative proceeding begun under this chapter;
(5)  the proposed surface coal mining operation, if located west of the 100th meridian west longitude, will not:
(A)  interrupt, discontinue, or preclude farming on alluvial valley floors that are irrigated or naturally subirrigated, excluding:
(i)  undeveloped rangeland that is not significant to farming on the alluvial valley floors;  and
(ii)  land on which the commission finds that the farming to be interrupted, discontinued, or precluded is of such small acreage as to have negligible impact on the farm's agricultural production;  or
(B)  materially damage the quantity or quality of water in surface or underground water systems that supply those valley floors;  and
(6)  the applicant has submitted to the commission, if the ownership of the coal has been severed from the private surface estate:
(A)  the surface owner's written consent to the extraction of coal by surface mining methods;  or
(B)  a conveyance that expressly grants or reserves the right to extract the coal by surface mining methods.
(b)  Subsection (a)(4)(B) does not apply to an area as to which an administrative proceeding has begun if the applicant demonstrates that, before January 1, 1977, the applicant made substantial legal and financial commitments in relation to the operation for which the applicant is applying for a permit.
(c)  Subsection (a)(5) does not apply to a surface coal mining operation that in the year preceding May 9, 1979:
(1)  produced coal in commercial quantities and was located in or adjacent to alluvial valley floors;  or
(2)  had obtained specific permit approval by the commission to conduct surface coal mining operations in the alluvial valley floors.
Added by Acts 1995, 74th Leg., ch. 76, Sec. 12.02(a), eff. Sept. 1, 1995.