To the editor:
The following paragraph is quoted from an Oct. 17, 2013, Bangor Daily News online article: “Controversial mining rules debated at heavily attended hearing in Augusta,” by Christopher Cousins, BDN staff.
“This type of mining has not happened in Maine for decades, but the prospect was revived by J.D. Irving Ltd. which says the venture could eventually create up to 700 jobs and generate more than $100 million in state and local tax revenue.”
It has been more than a year and a half since Rep. John L. Martin and J.D. Irving Ltd. of Canada shocked many Maine citizens with their wondrous revelation that a valuable cache of metals existed in the scraggly lands of Aroostook County. That biased announcement carefully avoided any mention as to ‘how’ this multi-billion dollar ‘hoard’ became known to the Irving-Martin collaborators. Did someone at Irving (or maybe John Martin?) have a vision which said, “Go forth to this mountain and you will find riches?” Or did Mr. Hourihan, head-honcho for Irving lands in Maine, stumble to the ground as he tripped on a brick of gold?
I find that from the time the adulterated Martin-Irving message came forth in March of 2012, at least five BDN staff persons have written articles pertaining to the so-called Bald Mountain matter. However, what is so unsettling about these articles is the total failure to provide any sense of context. Certainly Cousins’ statements that this type of mining has not happened in decades and that “the prospect of mining was revived by J.D. Irving Ltd.” reveals an alarming naivety as to the history of the Bald Mountain deposit. To even mention the world class Bald Mountain deposit in the same breath with those tiny deposits mined more than 40 years ago in coastal Maine reveals an absence of cognizance on those matters.
From the late 1950s to about 1972, dozens of large- and medium-sized corporations searched the wildlands of Maine in pursuit of ‘concealed’ copper-zinc massive sulphides. However, by 1973, after spending more than $450 million in 2013 dollars, all walked away except J.S. Cummings Inc. In September of 1977, after the state’s metal potential had been severely downgraded by the Maine Geological Survey, Cummings Inc. discovered the ‘concealed’ Bald Mountain deposit in T12, R8, Aroostook County, Maine.
The implementation of Maine’s 1991 rules on metallic minerals resulted in the mineral rights lease covering the Bald Mountain deposit to be relinquished to the landowner. Thus, J.D. Irving Ltd. became the owner of the Bald Mountain deposit by default.
Aside from reviewing the dozens of articles bearing on the Bald Mountain deposit that appeared in the BDN from late 1977 through the ‘80s, the BDN writers should visit Cummings, J.S. at URSUS where two informative books (1988 and 2008) bearing on the Bald Mountain matter can be found.
J. S. Cummings
Grand Prairie, Texas
