| OCR Text |
Show 306 WAR FOR THE COLORADO RIVER Straus. "Now, if this theory is applied to projects in general, it becomes clear. If it's twice as far to one project as to another, the first project would have twice as much written off for travel benefit as the second. Is that plain?" "Very," said Mr. Ant, and wiped his glasses. Mr. Straus seemed satisfied. "Now we come to per diem value. That amounts to $660,000 a year for Bridge Canyon." "Per diem for whom?" said Mr. Ant fearfully. "Listen to him," scoffed Mr. Straus. "We figure that 20 per cent of the visitors will stay one night, and five per cent will stay longer." Where will they stay? Will there be hotels?" asked Mr. Ant. "Somebody has to build a hotel," said Mr. Straus, and went right on. "That makes a total of 150,000 visitors, and each "I thought there would be 500,000 visitors . . ." Mr. Ant began. "For goodness sake, let me finish," said Mr. Straus crossly. "Each will spend $4.40, or a total of $660,000 a year. There you have the per diem value." Mr. Ant looked a little dizzy. "Now we come to recreational value," Mr. Straus continued. "We figure this is about 20 cents each." "Twenty cents," repeated Mr. Ant. "These aren't very high class visitors, eh?" Mr. Straus glared at him. "Leave class out of this. Recre- ational value at 20 cents each amounts to $100,000 a year. So now we come to general value, and that's worth $269,000 a year. We arrive at this amount by figuring that general value is made up of 20 per cent of travel value plus 20 per cent of per diem value. Altogether that makes about $1,700,000 a year. Then you simply figure that over a 70-year period, which is the amortization period of Bridge Canyon Dam. That comes out 33 million dollars." "Who does it come out of?" asked Mr. Ant. His mouth was dry, but he managed to speak. "That's what the treasury pays out for recreation at Bridge Canyon, the desert waste where there are no accommodations, no roads, no hamburger stands only a few coyotes and prairie dogs." |
