Certain countably generated big Cohen-Macaulay modules are balanced

Throughout this note, A will denote a (commutative, Noetherian) local ring (with identity) having maximal ideal m and dimension d. Let x1, …, xd be a system of parameters (s.o.p.) for A. A (not necessarily finitely generated) A-module M is said to be a big Cohen–Macaulay A-module with respect to x1, …, xd, if x1, …, xd is an M-sequence. In the last ten or fifteen years there has been substantial interest in such modules, initially stemming from M. Hochster's discoveries that, if A contains a field as a subring, and x1, …,xd is any s.o.p. for A, then there exists a big Cohen-Macaulay A-module with respect to x1, …,xd, and that the existence of such modules has important consequences for the local homological conjectures in commutative algebra: see [6].