The Gloucester County Planning Commission will hold a public hearing about surface mineral mining at 7:30 tonight in the colonial courthouse.

The proposed changes to the zoning ordinance add definitions for mines, minerals and surface mineral mining and add surface mineral mining as a defined use in the supplementary district regulations.

As a result, sand and gravel mining would be defined as “surface mineral mining” and removed from “extractive manufacturing,” which includes coal, oil and natural gas, a public notice said.

Planner Tripp Little said the proposed ordinance would allow surface mineral mining by-right in the Light-Industrial (I-1) zoning district. Few areas of Gloucester are currently zoned I-1, he said.

In addition, surface mineral mining would be allowed by conditional use permit in the Rural Countryside (RC-1) and Suburban Countryside (SC-1) districts.

Little said active sand and mining permits are held at several places in the county, inc...