March 6, 2006
By Dina Cappiello, Houston Chronicle

Air monitoring? Scant.

Pollutions laws? Weak.

In the shadow of one oil refinery, The 'Bucket Brigade' is measuring for the first time what resident are breathingThe air smelled like charred oil, and behind him smoke from one of Mexico's largest oil refineries blocked out the early morning sun, but Gonzalo Rodríguez Merales was beaming. "Aha!" Rodríguez exclaimed, as he hoisted a clear plastic bag, bulging with air collected along the cinder block wall separating the Lázaro Cárdeñas refinery from this city like a fortress.

It was a scene that has played out over and over again in industrial neighborhoods in the U.S., where citizens have been forming "bucket brigades" to test air pollution since the mid-1990s, using a simple five-gallon plastic paint bucket outfitted with parts found in any local hardware store. But the sample Rodríguez gathered on the doorstep of the Minatitlan refinery last month was the first for his country and for all of Latin America, where laws regulating pollution are weaker and there is scant monitoring of the hazardous air pollutants released by refineries and chemical plants. To read the full story go to: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3703169.html