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EPA Continued from Page 7 to face the same restrictions a town 0; 50,000 faces. "It's crazy. We just spent $300 for one water test, checking for things that we've never had here." Creek said Cmwford has to rou. tinely check for evidence of runoff from the streets in its watcr supply. "There's no way we're going 10 have any runoff from our streets in it. Our water supply comes from up on the mountain, Is it going to run off uphill?" Ten years ago, Paonia construct- ed a new filtration plant, which Gall said was reviewed (horoughly and deemed adequate. He said the town was not told to perform particulate testing until December, 1991. Two months later the town's water source was reclas- sified as "ground waters under the infiuent of surface waters," and the town was told that a new filtration plant had to be on line by July 1993. Estimates for (he plant arc pro- jected at $430,000. Gall said that although some of the money for the project could come from loans, "lhe lown cannot afford to bond for these addil.ional funds. Even a low-interest loan would put a hardship on the com- munity. The cost per tap to service the additional debt would result in an increase in the water bill of $4.30 per month. "The cost of the monitoring requirements forthe Safe Drinking Water Act may cost our town $32,000 just to test for things that have never bccn a concern before. We have no objecl.ion to being sure we [arc) providing drinking water which is safe, but wonder to what - degree the water must be pure before it is deemed safe by the EPA. We feel caught up in the wasteful pursuit of zero risk." He said the regulations are con- flicting as well. The town is required to chlorinate the water it gelS. unly tv face Emits on the amount of chlorine present at the point of discharge. The state is also cracking down on control of nox- ious weeds, but the EPA has tough restrictions on the use of herbi- cides, he added. Hotchkiss closing intersection at Hwy. 92 bridge The intersection of Hotchkiss Avenue and Highway 92 at the west end of Hotchkiss will be per- manently closed, the town board of trustccs announced last week. The imcrscction was the scene of a crash which killed Hotchkiss resident Larry D. Rogers Jr. on April 17. Rogers died when a car driven by Marcy Lynn Kupcho, 18, of Clifton failed to negotiate the left- hand curve. Rogers, who sustained massive head injuries, died two days later. The board said a guard rail would probably be erected to close the road. Hotchkiss Mayor John Neill expressed to the state department of transportation the nccd to close the intersection. On May 8, District 3 traffic engineer James Nail wrote a lelter in response acknowledging the potential dnnger there. Nail said the intersection pro- motes high exit speeds and makcs visibility difficult. OOl/?2