4501 et seq.) (the Act).
Sahara Coal Company operates several coal mines in Southern Illinois, including its 500-acre No. 6 mine in Saline County. Aware that the supply of coal in the existing mined area was running out, Sahara contemplated expanding its operations to a neighboring 189-acre tract, most of which is owned outright by Sahara. As required by the Act (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1979, ch. 96 1/2, pars. 4504, 4506), Sahara applied to the Illinois Department of Mines and Minerals on March 8, 1979, for a surface-mining permit. Additional information requested by the Department was supplied by Sahara.
The County Board of Saline County did not ask that a public hearing be held on Sahara's application. As the Act does not contemplate a hearing in the absence of thenot any type of "hearing" is ever held.
*120 As its second assignment of error, the Department asserts that the circuit court improperly limited the record before it. More than six months after the suit was brought in the Circuit Court of Saline County and approximately six months after it had filed an "Administrative Record," the Department moved to supplement that record. Some of the material sought to be inserted consisted of memoranda made by Department personnel during the pendency of Sahara's application. Sahara agreed that this material should be included, and it was.
The Department also wanted to expand the administrative record to include testimony presented at a hearing which resulted in the adoption of the Department's "Rule 1104," which establishes standards for the reclamation of certain farmland. It