NEWPORT - Newport County ranks in the worst 20 percent of all United States counties in health problems connected to diesel pollution, according to the National Clean Air Task Force.

And a half-dozen Thompson Middle School students are doing their part to ease the problem. The students stood outside the school Wednesday afternoon holding signs that featured messages like "We Don't Want to Die."

Korena Johnson, a seventhgrader, jotted down the number of diesel-powered vehicles - such as buses and construction equipment - that drove up and down Broadway in half-an-hour. "We love this earth," she said. "We don't want anything bad to happen to it."

The pollution patrol was part of an after-school program run by Clean Water Action of Providence. Campaign organizer Michael Coates ran the demonstration. "We want the kids to have an idea of how much diesel potentially goes into the air right outside their own school," he said.

The ultimate goal, Coates said, is to require all vehicles to install devices that block pollution from emanating from them.

It's impossible for the students to be certain that all the passing vehicles they listed were diesel powered, he acknowledged. "But school buses, construction vehicles are always a good bet," he said. "We can't know for sure, unless we can open the hood and look inside."

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