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• Sewage flows into creek
  

  About 3,600 gallons of untreated sewage overflowed into Perch Creek Sunday because the water system's pipes were blocked with grease, authorities said.

  Mobile Area Water & Sewer System crews have cleared the blockage and are taking steps to prevent overflows at location, 3568 Dauphin Island Parkway, according to a news release.

  Posted at 4:45 p.m.

• Tomorrow's weather today
  

  Monday, Dec. 17: Sunny and mild. Highs in the mid- to upper 50s. Overnight, clear and cold. Lows in the upper 20s to low 30s. Rain chance less than 5 percent.
  
  Tuesday, Dec. 18: Mostly sunny. Highs in the upper 50s. Lows in the low to mid- 30s. Rain chance less than 5 percent.
  

  
  Posted at 4:42 p.m.

• County will start work on houses in January
  

  Mobile County will start its initiative in January to repair homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina, nearly 18 months since gaining federal housing aid and more than two years since the storm made landfall, officials said last week.

  Mobile County will start its initiative in January to repair homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina, nearly 18 months since gaining federal housing aid and more than two years since the storm made landfall, officials said last week.

  The county has received nearly $17 million in federal grants to repair, rebuild and elevate homes battered by Katrina in August 2005. The first $9.5 million grant reached the county in June 2006, followed by another $7.4 million earlier this year.

  Now, the first repairs will begin in January and new home construction is expected to begin as early as February, officials said.
  
  The county has the task of choosing up to 250 homes from 1,167 applications -- the most homes that the funding could likely cover, officials estimate. Community activist groups have called the process unnecessarily slow and unfair.

  County officials say they're covering a wide territory and working with home inspectors to identify which people to help.

  "We're trying our best to get the money to the people that are most needy and not to the people that were unfortunately unable to take care of their homes before the hurricane," said Annette McGrady, the county's grants consultant with Montgomery-based Roth McHugh and Associates LLC.

  The county has about $17 million for all of Mobile County, except Bayou La Batre, which received its own $37 million federal housing grant for Katrina recovery.

  People from Dog River, Alabama Port, Coden and Prichard, among other locations, have submitted requests for aid.

  Some will be rejected

  About one-third of the applications will likely be rejected, McGrady said, for either involving damage unrelated to the storm or being ineligible for other reasons. For example, some applications request repairs on vacation homes.

  People who are living in government-supplied trailers or uninhabitable homes -- especially the disabled, the elderly, or families with children -- will receive first priority, McGrady said.

  The county had launched the program, funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, as "first-come, first-serve," with priority given to applications processed first. Now, the housing committee is reviewing applications and selecting families, McGrady said. Each applicant can receive up to $85,000 in repairs or construction.

  The county also changed its approach to repairing damages, McGrady said. Initially, damaged homes were to be completely rehabilitated, but state officials decided only damages from the storm will be repaired, she said.
  
  A big difference

  "Why haven't the people of Alabama been taken care of to this point and 75,000 ... have been taken care of in Louisiana?" said Jim Fuller, president of the South Bay Communities Alliance, a coalition of south Mobile County unincorporated communities. Fuller lost his home on Coden Belt Road.

  "We were discussing a year ago the same problems we are discussing today: Who is going to get assistance and who is not," Fuller said.

  Zack Carter, an organizer with Alabama Arise, an advocacy group for poor and moderate-income families, said that people whose houses were blown away should be helped immediately.

  "If a home was destroyed, it's gone," Carter said. "There is no issue about whether they needed repairs before the storm blew it away. Let's rebuild the homes we know were destroyed."

  McGrady said the number of homes destroyed has not been determined.

  Bill Johnson, director of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs, which oversees Katrina housing recovery, said it has been a challenge to decide how to spend a grant that isn't large enough to reach everybody.

  The process has also been slowed by federal requirements, including environmental tests and historical preservation rules, he said.

  "There's not enough money, and no matter how you try to come up with a fair way to allocate the funds, many people will not be able to be helped and will not be happy," Johnson said.

  Scraps of a bird house hung Thursday from a dead tree in what used to be a yard before Katrina came to Niolon Lane in Coden.
  
  How do you decide?

  Nearby, an old seafood refrigerator with the spray-painted warning "Looters will be shot" stands near where Paul Nelson's oyster shop used to operate.

  Nelson lives here in a cramped government-supplied trailer, after Katrina wrecked his family's seven-bedroom house.

  Next door, his sister lives in a new, elevated and steel-framed house, built by the Volunteers of America.

  "The question is, how do you decide who gets help and who needs help?"said Nelson, an organizer with South Bay Communities Alliance who has lobbied for more hurricane relief funding for Mobile County. "What about everybody else?"

• Tomorrow's forecast today
  

  Sunday: Mostly sunny with strong breeze. Highs in the low to mid-50s. Lows in the mid- to upper 20s. Rain chance about 10 percent.

  Monday: Mostly sunny.Highs in the mid- to upper 50s. Lows in the upper 20s to low 30s. Rain chance about 10 percent.

• ADEM wants safer water
  

  A state environmental panel voted Friday to reduce the amount of cancer-causing carcinogens released into waterways, a move that could strengthen Alabama's standards to match those in surrounding states.

  Panel of commissioners votes to reduce cancer-causing pollutants in Alabama waterways

  MONTGOMERY -- A state environmental panel voted Friday to reduce the amount of cancer-causing carcinogens released into waterways, a move that could strengthen Alabama's standards to match those in surrounding states.

  The Environmental Management Commission still must take another vote on the proposal after a public comment period and public hearing. The commission oversees the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.

  However, several environmental groups applauded Friday's initial decision.

  "I would praise the commission for taking action to protect Alabamians by reducing the risk of getting cancer from pollutants in water," said David Ludder, the former chief lawyer for ADEM who now represents the environmental groups.

  Alabama Power expressed opposition to the new standards in May, citing economic costs, insufficient science, and a failure to "demonstrate any material benefit to public health." Spokesman Michael Sznajderman said Friday afternoon that the company had not had time to review the panel's decision.

  Arsenic excluded

  The vote by the commission did exclude arsenic. Ludder said ADEM's criteria for arsenic is stricter than most other states in the Southeast.

  "Certainly we need to look at what ADEM did today, but if they specifically voted to exclude arsenic, that would be encouraging," Sznajderman said.

  Several of the state's preeminent business interests filed formal complaints with ADEM concerning the proposal. In addition to Alabama Power, those include the Business Council of Alabama, the Alabama Coal Association and the Alabama Pulp and Paper Council.

  Adam Snyder of Conservation Alabama, Cindy Lowry of the Alabama Rivers Alliance, Barbara Evans of WildLaw and Casi Callaway of Mobile Baykeeper said Friday's vote is a great step forward.

  Even though two commission members were absent Friday, Ludder said four of the five present voted for the changes and he expects the vote to stand.

  Commissioner Kathleen Felker, a physician, and Commissioner Laurel Gardner said Friday that there is no guarantee the change will lower the risk of cancer, but it will reduce the exposure to potentially harmful substances.

  Felker said she did not see any significant impact on businesses.

  Alabama has less stringent standards than Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and the Carolinas when it comes to the 58 carcinogens discharged into waterways and regulated by ADEM. The proposal would change the maximum level of the carcinogens allowed into streams and rivers. Alabama's current level for those carcinogens is the least stringent allowed by the