BOOK PRESENTATION

OPPRESSION FOR THE HEAVEN OF IT

by Moore Bowen

pseudonym for Alan Mountain & Alice Bolstridge

Chance & Choice: Book Launch

No Metal Mining in Maine

The metal mining bill, LD 820, that was passed by the Maine Legislature is not environmentally protective. It allows contamination of ground water within 100 feet of the "mining area." It allows an open pit of up to 3 acres which is nearly half the size of the disastrous Callahan mine. There is no limit in the bill on the number of shafts or open pits of up to 3 acres, so there could conceivably be many mining areas. There is no satisfactory explanation of how contaminated ground water could be prevented from polluting surrounding waters. 

Celebrants of the passage of the bill, are touting the virtues of "enough up-front money from the mining company to cover a worst-case mining disaster." The money up front will be determined by State environmental agencies (BEP or DEP) which serve at the whim of political powers in office and have shown themselves incapable of writing truly protective regulations for the last 5 years. It drives me to despair remembering that there has never been enough money to repair the damage of a worst-case mining disaster, and that is likely to happen if Bald Mountain is mined. 

Bald mountain is one of the most toxic sites in the U. S., and Maine is one of the wettest states which makes it especially vulnerable to uncontrollable leaching of toxic substances. Catastrophic contamination of the Fish River Chain downstream from a mine at Bald Mountain is to be expected as there are no examples anywhere of metal mining, neither open pit nor shaft, neither traditional nor modern, that does not contaminate surrounding waters. 

Proponents of the bill claim it is the most protective in the United States, and I have no reason to doubt their word, but it is still not protective enough with these problems still remaining. With the current state of technology, a ban on metal mining in Maine is the only legislation that will be protective enough. The issue is not settled. We have not heard the last of it.

Show me the Evidence

The Maine Legislative Committee on Environment and Natural Resources voted “Ought to pass” on LD  820, the bill supported by the environmental community that supposedly bans open-pit mining and wet-waste management but will allow contamination of ground water in restricted areas of underground or “shaft” mining. Concerned that any allowance of contaminated ground water cannot be contained to the mining area, I asked for evidence of such a mine successfully containing pollution from surrounding waters. I was told the Green Creeks Mine in Alaska is such a mine.

Researching this mine, I find great causes for alarm and no evidence that underground mines can adequately protect the environment or human health.   In one article, Shoren Brown writes, “the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation released a study showing the Greens Creek mine is polluting Admiralty Island National Monument with acid mine drainage.” “Greens Creek has a long history of polluting Alaska's waters. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Greens Creek is Alaska's second biggest toxic polluter. It released 59 million pounds of toxic chemicals in 2000.”  

Another article by Haines Watch says, “Greens Creek Mine has had hundreds of mining violations. Now, terribly, we know that the mine has greatly polluted Hawk Inlet. Local native communities are distraught over the possibility of a complete loss of subsistence in their ocean area. . . . These mines destroy and ruin a way of life that has gone on for thousands of years. Nothing is more “Restrictive” then destroying people’s food sources. Tourism, Commercial Fishing, Sub-fishing, and our native communities are all at risk.” 

With any metal mining in Maine’s wet climate, local Maine resources of sports, fishing, and hunting as well as human health are at great risk. An article from the National Institutes ofHealth says, "Because of their high degree of toxicity, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, and mercury [all elements found at toxic levels at Bald Mountain] rank among the priority metals that are of public health significance. These metallic elements are considered systemic toxicants that are known to induce multiple organ damage, even at lower levels of exposure. They are also classified as human carcinogens (known or probable) according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer." 

I have repeatedly asked for evidence that any metal mining in Maine’s wet climate can be environmentally safe. No one—not the geologists I have asked, not the legislators, not the environmentalist supporters of LD 820—have been able or willing to provide such evidence.

I wrote to all the Maine legislators, explaining the risks and asking them to please vote against LD 820 and support a ban on any metal mining in Maine, but this week the Maine Senate voted 34-0 to pass the bill. If you are reading this and live in Maine, please contact your House member today and tell him or her to vote NO on the bill and to support a ban on Metal mining in Maine.

Published The Star Herald, May 17, 2017

NO EVIDENCE FOR SAFETY OF OPEN-PIT MINING

Aroostook folks testifying at Maine legislative hearing
in opposition to metal mining. 

Since 2012, I have spent months researching metal mining each time I prepare to testify at legislative hearings, 4 times total.

I know from all this research and from listening to overwhelming numbers of people testifying in opposition to weak mining rules that Bald Mountain is among the most toxic sites in the United States. I heard stories about workers on the original exploration of the site in the 1970s becoming sick just from the dust of the drilling holes. One broke out in a rash so severe he had to be taken to the emergency room for treatment.  I have heard testimony at legislative hearings from Medical Doctors about serious medical effects of open pit mining, effects which sound deadly to me. I heard testimony from environmental scientists about the risks of pollution from arsenic, sulphuric acid, and other toxic chemicals

According to Lance Tapley in ThePhoenix, the geologist who discovered and explored the Bald Mountain site, John. S. Cummings, found “arsenic levels in the rock up to . . . 2.9 million times the level the federal Environmental Protection Agency considers safe for drinking water. . . . In one of his many writings about the mountain, [Cummings] describes [the site] as an enormous, naturally occurring ‘toxic dump.’” In a letter to John Martin in 2012, Cummings  said “a large open-pit [mine] . . . is a prescription for a debacle.”

A 2014 industry article that analyzes risks to be managed to increase profitability says, “The metal mining industry is the largest toxic polluter in the U.S.” In addition to water pollution, it is “a significant contributor of [Greenhouse Gas Emissions] and other “Hazardous Air Pollutants” that “have more localized (but significant) human health and environmental impacts.” This pro-mining article talks about managing the risks. It makes no claims about preventing toxic effects.

A report from Friends of the Cloquet Valley State Forest in Minnesota with a climate similar to Maine’s concludes about the promise of economic benefits, “Metal mining earnings and jobs tend to be very volatile, leading to community instability and long-term decline. These are real economic costs associated with metal mining. The metal mining industry is prone to both ‘booms’ and ‘busts’ as well as to a long-term decline in the labor required to produce any given volume of metal ore.”

I looked but couldn’t find any convincing evidence in research or testimony since 2012 that pollution of ground water and toxic wastes can be safely contained in perpetuity at sites like Bald Mountain.

For all these reasons, I can only support a ban on open-pit metal mining or on any underground mine that poses unacceptable risks to water, air, soil, human health, and sustainable socio-economic health of communities. Mining at the Bald Mountain site and other toxic sites in Maine must never be allowed unless or until trustworthy evidence exists that it will be done without risk of catastrophic damage. That evidence does not exist at this time. 

Published The Star Herald, March 29, 2017

Expanded and Improved Medicare for All

In the early 60s, my oldest son suffered a near-fatal illness that lasted for several years and involved several lengthy hospitalizations. We were a working-class, one-income family, and we survived this crisis in good financial shape with health insurance from Blue Cross/Blue Shield which was non-profit at that time. Most working-class families had high-quality affordable health insurance then. Since then, corporate profit and advertising has entered the health-care business and created a system too expensive, too complex, too inefficient, too unaffordable, and too inaccessible to be sustainable.  Profit, not consumer health, is now the major concern of the health-care industrial complex.  

The Affordable Health Care Act has been economic salvation for many families I know by improving affordability. It has not and cannot solve the other problems created by profit-driven market forces. 

The Patient’sFreedom Act proposed recently by Senator Susan Collins to replace the ACA makes the system way too complex for consumers by offering 3 system options for states to choosefrom. One option is to keep the ACA as is, which is not a good choice. There are still way too many uninsured, underinsured, or with too high deductibles to make it truly affordable to all. Both of the other 2 options would reduce benefits to consumers and do not solve other major problems in the current system. 

Both my personal experience and my years of research into health-care persuades me that the most reasonable, humane, and best solution to benefit consumers and to solve the problems is to replace Obama Care with the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, H.R. 676, which “would vastly simplify how the nation pays for care, saving hundreds of billions of dollars on administrative overhead that could be used to improve patient health, restore free choice of physician, and eliminate copays and deductibles. . . . [N]early 6 in 10 Americans, 58 percent, support a Medicare-for-all approach, with the Gallup poll finding that 41 percent of Republicans favor replacing the ACA with ‘a federally funded health care program providing insurance for all Americans” (). Such a program could automatically enroll everyone at birth and be funded by affordable premium payments to the Medicare system instead of to profit making insurance companies.  Until this can be done, we must not repeal the ACA which would throw the whole system into even more chaos than it is in now.

Published, February 1, The Star Herald

2016 YEAR IN REVIEW

I am particularly grateful this New Year for my habit of reviewing the past year to find what I have to be grateful for. In view of the dismaying election and the discouraging and humbling experience of trying to really work at promoting my books, it almost seems sinful to mine the past for reasons to be optimistic. Still, I will pretend I am undaunted. I will remember that pretense, when used in the service of love, is a virtue. It is how we imagine a better future and work for it. And in friendship, I do not even have to pretend—I am rich. Thank you for yours’.

MY YEAR IN PICTURES

Chance & Choice forthcoming March 3,
cover art by son Alan Mountain.

Blurbs and advance sales until January 13 @ 

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/chance-choice-by-alice-bolstridge/ 

With Dottie Hutchins at May Art Show of son Alan Mountain’s work. 

Proceeds  from sales to Wintergreen Art Center and Catholic Charities.

With MSSM folks celebrating
Mike McCartney's County Teacher of the Year Award


DECEMBER/JANUARY '17 ART SHOW 
AT MORNING STAR ART & FRAMING, 
PRESQUE ISLE, ME 

Alan's art on back cover of Oppression for the Heaven of It 
by Moore Bowen (collaboration of Alan & Alice) @ amazon.com.

 Proceeds from sales of books and art go to
Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care.

The artist, son Alan Mountain (1956 - 2015) in May, 2001

At Carr Pond with Environmental friends
rallying to save Bald Mountain from open pit mining. 

"Buffalo Schoolhouse Choir" from 1942 or '43
showed up this year on FaceBook. 

Seated: Brother Stan at end on left; me 3rd from left.
Row two: Brother Rodney 2nd from left.
Last row: Sister Cherry 2nd from right. Serious bunch, hunh?

With local members of Ashland High School Class of 1955.

CHRISTMAS 2016

  

Chicky & Larry

 David

 

Jack, Dustin & Carrigan

  

Micah

Where are Brenda and Dylan? 

BLESSINGS & JOYS TO YOU IN 2017