(BAYOU LA BATRE, Ala.) May 25- "Chicken, Conecuh sausage," a Coden man says is the menu for his family's Memorial Day cookout.
It's a mouth watering menu, but the family says not nearly as appetizing is the thought of what might be floating in nearby ditch water.
"You don't know what the hell's in them sewages," Mobile County Resident Belinda Wilkerson says.
Over the weekend, health officials say rain pushed more than 30,000 gallons of raw sewage into the streets. Wilkerson says she isn't surprised.
"Yeah, I know what they talking about cause you can see it any time it rains," Wilkerson says. "All that nothing but human waste laying out."
Waste that makes its way into the waterways. The bayou's old and inadequate sewage treatment facility regularly backs up, to the point people around here aren't even phased by what often happens after dark clouds and rain roll in.
"We already got used to it. What's the difference. I mean, we already used to it," Coden Resident Alisha Harbison says.
And although a plan is underway to build a new sewage treatment facility, some residents say that won't help them now.
"Look at them ditches out there. You don't know what's left in those ditches. We got kids that gets out and wants to play in them," says Wilkerson.
The Mobile County Health Department says more than 30,000 gallons of sewage overflowed in Bayou La Batre after heavy rains came through Saturday morning.
The overflows were reported at Warner Street and Railroad Street, 6,000 gallons; 13890 Shell Belt Road, 1,150 gallons; 13905 Shell Belt, 3,150 gallons; Shell Belt and Jones Road, 9,000 gallons; 14601 Shell Belt, 1,200 gallons; 14090 Shell Belt, 7,875 gallons; 9195 Little River Road, 1,200 gallons; 14120 Shell Belt, 5,700 gallons; Cain Street and Shell Belt, 1,250 gallons; 13615 Wintzell Ave., 1,800 gallons; Davenport Avenue and Ala. 188, 2,100 gallons.
