In a valley near Lithgow, moments down the track from the Gardens of Stone National Park, John Munzer once brought his son to his father's farm and taught him to shoot rabbits in the rich pastures and catch yabbies in the creek.
Munzer's father has died and the farm is his but, he says, the creek has dried up and the pasture is no longer fit for cattle. He is also locked in a dispute with the new neighbour, the Invincible coalmine.
The dispute is hardly unique - farmers and mine operators are often at loggerheads about land use. Munzer says the mine has spoiled his pastures and water.
He has gathered evidence that appears to show the mining company has blasted the walls of the mountain overlooking his farm outside legal operating hours and failed to properly monitor the dust and noise on his property.
But the thing that really stands out in this dispute, critics of mine regulation say, is how clearly it demonstrates faults in the approvals system in NSW.
The mine is owned by a company called Coalpac, which in turn is part-owned by a local businessman, Noel Craven.
The environmental impact statement supplied as part of the mine's approval process was prepared by a Lithgow firm, Craven, Elliston & Hayes, and written by the same Noel Craven.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the assessment found that, ''the impacts will be well within acceptable criteria''.
Craven, a qualified mine surveyor, concedes there is a potential for a conflict of interest arising from him preparing an environmental impact statement for his own mine but stands by his reputation. ''A professional person has an obligation to the world at large. Whatever they do has to be done right.''
But, he notes, ''you don't even have to be qualified'' to write an environmental impact statement for an open cut mine.
''Is that a problem?'' the Herald asked. ''Well, it's not a problem for me,'' he said.
The state government is adamant that the relationship between a mine and the author of an environmental impact statement is irrelevant, because all the supporting material is rigorously checked.
''This is the same process followed by local councils for development applications they assess,'' says a spokesman for the Minister for Planning, Tony Kelly.
But the Herald has spoken to several environmental consultants who say they routinely play down the damage that mines might cause to sensitive environments because they know they simply would not get more work if they did not.
''You can predict the subsidence impacts quite well and say before, with a high degree of accuracy, what will happen,'' says one consultant with 15 years' experience.
''Then, when it does happen down the track, and you get the swamps drying up because of cracking, the response is always that it can be successfully remediated but more studies need to be done.
''And the company can … point back to the original assessment and say there was a possibility of damage but they weren't sure. Then the whole thing starts again for the next mine - anything to downplay the impact.''
Kirsty Ruddock, the principal solicitor at the Environmental Defender's Office, says the lack of regulation in the area ''raises real issues about whether the scientific assessments are rigorous and independent''.
She says another shortcoming environmental assessment system is that there is no process to accredit environmental consultants. Nor is there a body that deals with complaints about such work - unlike in areas such as health or law.
Munzer has had enough. He has given up on his retirement dream of building cabins for tourists on his farm and now he just wants to sell it to Coalpac.
As part of the consent given for the mine, Coalpac was directed to buy his farm if he chose to leave. But, despite two years of negotiations, they have yet to agree on a fair price.
For now Munzer is stuck with the mine.
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