The long-time face of the Minewatch organisation in the Hunter, she has vowed not to sell her Camberwell land holdings to the miners until either they or the NSW Government pay for a comprehensive study into the cumulative effects of the Hunter's giant mines on the health of Upper Hunter residents.

Mrs Bowman is also asking the Government to shift two air quality monitors from the relatively clean Lower Hunter to the heavily mined upper valley, where pollutant surveys report some of the highest levels of air pollution in Australia.

Given the immense profits the multinational coal companies have earned from their Hunter mines over the past several years and the massive royalty contributions they have made to NSW revenues one might have thought that a few million dollars for a health study would not have been too much to ask. The fact that the industry and the Government are so reluctant to install monitors and to fund a health study might cause some to wonder whether they are simply afraid of what they might discover.

Meanwhile, coalmining proposals are moving into areas once considered out of bounds by virtue of either economic viability or concerns about the impact on affected communities. Conflicts between coal companies and communities are becoming more common, with howls of outrage now being heard from the Gunnedah basin, the Gloucester district and western Lake Macquarie.

At Gunnedah farmers are warning that the coal wealth to be extracted isn't worth the loss of productive land. At Gloucester many argue the long-term losses in agriculture and tourism may be greater than short-term coal profits. And at Lake Macquarie the argument hinges on the loss of residential amenity and the possible health effects on an area with a growing population.