Forty Merriwa residents came together last Wednesday to listen to three air quality campaigners, Dr John Drinan, Lyn McBain and Carol Russell from the Singleton Healthy Environment Group.

The campaigners expressed their concerns about the efficiency of the air quality monitors and the impact they would eventually have on air quality across the Upper Hunter.

Dr Drinan said that while having monitors installed was a step in the right direction, the monitors had to be capable of monitoring more than just dust and soot.

“Along with the particles in our Upper Hunter air come at least 37 toxic pollutants. There is no threshold at which particles are really safe,” he said.

Dr Drinan said it was the smallest particles found in the air of 2.5 microns or less that created the greatest hazard to health as these particles penetrated the body more easily than larger particles.

A member of the Upper Hunter Air Quality Monitoring Advisory Committee, Ms McBain, agreed that the monitors needed to measure a variety of pollutants to be effective.

“These monitors will measure dust and until they measure what’s in the dust, I have no confidence in them,” she said.

Residents concerned about air pollution formed the Merriwa Healthy Environment Group after the meeting of the Merriwa District Progress Association last Wednesday.

MHEG spokesman Graham Brown said the new group would focus on what was being done to ensure air quality monitors in the area were effective in analysing air pollutants.

The Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water has already installed two air quality monitors in Muswellbrook and Singleton and has recommended a further five sites for construction at Singleton north, Bulga, Maison Dieu, Camberwell and Mount Thorley.

A final seven locations have been earmarked for installation at Aberdeen, Merriwa, Singleton south, Jerry’s Plains, Muswellbrook northwest, Warkworth and Wybong.

MHEG will next meet on March 16 from 6pm at the Merriwa RSL Club, with interested residents invited to attend.

For more details, phone Graham Brown on 6547 6048 or Ted Finnie on 6548 5171.