In the community of Angurugu on Groote Eylandt, where dust from a manganese mine coats anything in the open air, Angela Wurramara is just one of the Wanandilyakwa people worried about the health impacts of the mining operation.
The dust falls from the South32 Gemco mine, the largest manganese mine in the world, off the Northern Territory's Arnhem Land coast.
Ms Wurramara is particularly worried after a not-yet-published University of Queensland (UQ) study, commissioned by the island's Anindilyakwa Land Council, found "concerningly high" levels of manganese in the hair and nails of more than 300 people.
"The government needs to step in," she said.
"My people need assessment of their health, and a lot of them are afraid to speak up as well."
The NT government has previously refused to investigate air pollution on Groote Eylandt or its health impacts in the community.
Now the NT Environment Department has told the ABC it is "open to" establishing an air quality monitoring station on the island – but only if Gemco mine operator South32 will pay to install and maintain it.
South32 does its own monitoring and has not been willing to provide the ABC with its results.
But it does provide them to the island's Anindilyakwa Land Council, which represents traditional owners.
The company has admitted to some "limited" exceedence of national dust guidelines.
Anindilyakwa Land Council mining manager Ian Hollingsworth said the results had not regularly breached the national guidelines.
He also said that each exceedence had not been much greater than the guidelines when they occurred.
"Angurugu has a problem in regard to meeting these generic guidelines that don't necessarily indicate human health effects but do indicate the need for further investigation," he said.
"At the moment, they are reasonably close to guideline values."
Mr Hollingsworth said the UQ study did not conclusively show that high manganese levels had been caused by dust from the mine.
He said there could potentially be other sources, including residents' dusty back yards given the island's soil contained the metal.
"If there is a health risk, obviously it needs to be addressed," he said.
"Our bioaccumulation work has shown that everyone probably has elevated levels of manganese."
However, for the first time, the land council, which gets most of its income from the mine, has asked South32 to carry out a health study.
"The mine needs to investigate the spread of dust from their mining operations that would interact with communities," he said.
"And [it needs to] come up with some clear and conclusive health risk assessment with a level of confidence that people are either affected or not affected."
He said the study should include health testing of the local population and include cognitive testing.
"Because manganese has an effect on peoples' cognitive ability, [on] their ability to coordinate and react," he said.
Mr Hollingsworth said the land council also wanted the NT government to carry out independent air monitoring.
"I think it is worth the NT government applying their resources to be the independent monitor here if some people in the community don't trust the results being provided by the mine," he said.
"Although I think [the mine has] a good standardised monitoring system."
South32 did not respond to questions from the ABC about whether it was prepared to fund a health study.
However, in a statement, it said "the health of everyone on Groote Eylandt is very important" to the company.
The statement also said that, while some dust level guidelines had been exceeded, the company had carried out dust control work and was tackling the problem by relocating stock piles, sealing roads and using watering trucks on its mine site.
Anindilyakwa Land Council's deputy chairman, Thomas Amagula, said he was confident that South32 was tackling dust problems in Groote Eylandt.
"There is improvement and we are working with the mine to prevent dust," he said.
Mr Amagula said he had been tested for manganese himself, but was not worried about the results.
"I'm not really because [the] health [impact] is unclear and it didn't affect my health," he said.
"I don't think it will have any affect to our community on the island."
The Groote Eylandt case is being watched by a number of other Australian mining communities where residents are also concerned at what they perceive as a lack of nationally consistent public information about air quality.
Other communities, including Newman in Western Australia's Pilbara region, are calling for more transparency around the levels of iron ore dust they are living with and how it could be affecting them.
Atmospheric chemist and Melbourne University associate professor Robyn Schofield has studied Australia's air quality monitoring regime.
She said the country's states and territories were collecting and reporting results differently.
"While there is monitoring in place, it's not all to the same standard," she said.
"We don't have one national website where we can say, 'this is where we have all of our air quality data for Wednesday last week'," she said.
"And there are places in our network, large areas, where we have no visibility at all, and so we really need to be able to fill those gaps."
All states and territories as well as the Commonwealth have committed to a process of working towards improving and standardising air monitoring under the National Clean Air Agreement.
The WA government has agreed to head up the mine dust component of the work.
The federal Environment Department told the ABC it was "taking a lead role in developing national standards", but did not provide details about its progress.
