NSW Minerals Council CEO Dr Niki Williams said the mining industry was 100 per cent behind plans to improve the community’s access to information about air quality in the Upper Hunter.

“Mine sites already meet high air quality standards, set at conservative levels by the government during the approval process and report results regularly to the NSW Government,” she said.

Dr Williams commented that the council understands the community has been having difficulty finding mine site air quality reports or having difficulty piecing it together.

“The mining industry has listened to these concerns and worked with the government to find a better way to monitor and report on air quality,” she explained.

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TIMING of the State Government’s Upper Hunter Air Quality Monitoring Network couldn’t be better for local GP Dr Tuan Au as he begins his respiratory study on Monday.

Like most of Singleton, Dr Au does have reservations about certain aspects of the announcement of the 14 particulate matter air quality monitoring stations.

“This is a good announcement if the monitors are going to measure PM2.5 (fine particles), if they are PM10 (course particles) then don’t worry about it,” he explained.

Dr Au is another concerned resident who will be following the community consultation process closely and in particular will look at the location of the monitors and ease of access for the public.

“If it is going to be on a government website put it on the Singleton Shire Council homepage,” he suggested.

Dr Au does applause the government and coal mines for taking the initial step towards understanding what pollutants are in our air and the associated health problems Singleton residents may be having because of it.

“If we have an in-town monitor I can link the results of my respiratory study and look at high emission days and the impacts on those I am testing,” he explained.

In his respiratory study, Dr Au is looking to prove or disprove that a child who lives near a mine will have a worse lung functioning test than a child living further away from a mine.

Dr Au will begin his testing on the cumulative impact of power and mining operations on children aged eight and over at King Street Public School on Monday.

The children will be tested for the next five years and Dr Au hopes that any early indications of health connections will result in a State Government initiated health study.

THE new air monitoring network announced by Minister for the Hunter Jodie McKay is far from what Singleton resident’s want in response to their health concerns.

For the Singleton Shire Healthy Environment Group, the air monitors are considered merely a first step towards finding out exactly what is in the air that Singleton residents are breathing.

The lack of clarification by the Minister if the monitors would provide real-time data or an average concerns the group.

“An average would disguise the times of major spikes of emissions that are potentially injurious to health,” explained group member John Drinan.

The air monitoring system is seen by the group to recognise the existence of Singleton and Muswellbrook as areas of concern that have air quality and associated health issues.

There is concern with the announcement referring to ‘dust data’ and question if there will be reliable easy to understand information on all emissions.

“There are at least 37 major pollutants emitted to the air we breathe in our area, most of which are gas and two are particulates . . . we need to know about all of these,” Mr Drinan said.

He added that the group is appreciative of the challenge it would have been to get the mining and power stations to agree on the Memorandum of Understanding.

“Our investigations show that while coal mining is responsible for most of the mineral particles in the air, the power stations are the major contributors of volume gases, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, and the overwhelming source of sulphuric and hydrochloric acids,” he explained.

Singleton resident and landowner Carol Russell added that there should be a memorandum on any air polluting industries in the region until a full examination of the health of Singleton residents was undertaken.

“The requests for a health study are still on the table,” she said in response to Minister McKay’s lack of acknowledgement about the need for a study into Singleton resident’s health concerns.

Mr Drinan said that the health study has always been the primary request by the group and wants to emphasise to Minister McKay that the community must be told how its health statistics compare with other parts of the State.

From the groups investigations into the connection between Singleton’s air quality and health issues, Mr Drinan said that there is a huge amount of anecdotal evidence that the incidence, especially of respiratory disease, allergies and cancers is mush higher in the Singleton Shire than elsewhere.