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Show THE THREE-RING CIRCUS 185 to $1,482,000 a year, or about $100 million over a 78- year pay-out period. Engle wanted to know how that figure was ascertained. Larson tried to push responsibility for it onto the National Park Service, but Engle wouldn't let him do that, and at last Larson said: "Those benefits have been determined on the basis of national benefit." Engle: "Can you tell me how they arrive at it?" Larson: "On the basis of the number of visitors that would visit the project, and what the value of that travel would be from a national standpoint. A man takes a vacation, for example, and goes out to one of those dams. He buys gasoline along the way, tires, lodging, and so forth. That is a benefit to the nation." Engle: "But if he did not go there he would go some place else." Larson: "Possibly." Engle: "Then the benefit will occur to the nation, anyway." Larson: "It may or may not." Engle: "I think he probably would go down to Lake Mead, if this one were not there. In other words, when you start saying that the benefits from recreation are those which result from the expenditures of money be- cause the recreation facilities are there for visitors, you are assuming that in the absence of those facilities that money would not be spent, whereas, that is not the ordinary assumption, is it?" Larson: "I think it is very safe to estimate that at least 500,000 people annually would visit Bridge Canyon recreational area." Engle: "It is my point that if they did not go there |