Your front-page story in the April 23 edition regarding the shutdown of the Stratton Spring in Hancock is probably the pettiest and most appalling thing we here locally have learned of recently.

The Environmental Protection Agency has overstepped its bounds on this one. It is apparent that it is all about money, and I’ll bet that if Kenny and Marcia [Stratton] were charging a fee per bottle of water the EPA would not have come near them.

If this is the best the EPA and the state water people can think up to do with taxpayers’ money and time then they should close their doors, take down their shingle, and go home.

If they really want to do some good, however, they might look into what awful stuff Ellsworth calls water, that people in that area do have to pay for. That is the type of “water” that needs to be tested and checked, not this beautiful, crystal clear, ice cold, pure water coming from the Stratton Spring and the many other springs throughout Maine that have been in use very successfully and with no incidents of illness or poison from water.

Shame, shame, shame. The EPA and others involved should give very serious reconsideration to this incident. William P. Robertson III Franklin