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Show THE THREE-RING CIRCUS 183 feasible. Several committee members who were success- ful businessmen appeared completely astonished by Larson's statements which were made in response to questioning by Engle.249 Larson admitted that, in the first place, to give the project any financial feasibility the present reclamation laws would have to be changed in at least two ways. One was the lengthening of the pay-out period for pro- jects from fifty to seventy-eight years, and the other was the inclusion of several non-reimbursable items, such as recreation, silt and salinity control, for which the project would not be required to pay. If these changes were not made in the laws, the only alternative would be to in- crease the price of power produced by the project by nearly fifty per cent . . . from a contemplated 4.65 mills to 6.22 mills. But there was grave doubt that the power could be sold to commercial users at such a high price, so the alternative was not acceptable. Larson's report said that the cost benefit ratio of the project was 1 to 1.59. That meant it would pay out. In its comments on the project, the Department of Agri- culture doubted the accuracy of this contention, and pointed out that in reaching it the Reclamation Bureau had made use of gross crop returns from the project in- stead of net crop returns. "Have you used gross crop returns?" Engle asked Larson. Larson: "We have used gross crop returns as a measure of the irrigation benefits." Engle: "Last year, for instance, I had a plum grower in my district who had a plum crop which grossed about $80,000, but he took $10,000 of red ink on his books in producing the crop and selling it. Under those circum- |