In surveys Mason City residents rank water sports (swimming, boating, and fishing) among their favorite recreational activities. The Mason River flowing through the city is rarely used for these pursuits, however, and the city park department devotes litt

Despite the fact that residents of Mason City rank water sports among favorite activities, the usage of the Mason River which flow through the city is relatively little. The author avers that new measures which address residents' complaints the usage of the river should increase drastically and thus the city's government should allocate more money on the river bank's facilities. This conclusion is buttressed by evidence which is based on several assumptions which should be carefully scrutinized in order to give a comprehensive estimation of the argument's soundness.

First of all, we are told that for many years the city's government has received complaints about river's smell and quality of water. The originator of the argument assumes that these complaints represent the mood of the local public. However, perhaps these complaints were written by local dwellers who live near the river side and thus these people may be a small percentage of the whole population of the city; moreover, do these discontented persons like water sports activities? If they are not, the author's argument is weakened.

Furthermore, if the people who wrote the complaints do not participate and do not love water sports activities, the author's belief that this is the reason of the little usage of the river is not supported. Moreover, other reasons which were neglected by the writer may lead to the rare usage of the river. For instance, it may be shallow or it has other characteristics which prevent the river's usage for sport. Additionally to it, perhaps, the local weather conditions may be harsh and thus the river is frozen for a most of the year or it has temperature which makes it dangerous and inconvenient to use it. Consequently, the government's actions which are aimed to remove the river's smell may not lead to expected result - the increase of usage of the river.

Finally, the argument claims that the Mason government must distribute more money on riverside recreational facilities. This statement is based on the assumption that current expenditures are insufficient. However, the fact that the government devotes little of its budget on the facilities does not mean that these amount is insufficient. Additionally to it, if the committee gave more money on these facilities, other sectors such as education, public services would have less money than otherwise. Consequently, the author needs to prove that this redistribution of money is reasonable.

In conclusion, the given argument asserts that actions taken by the government to clean up the river will inescapably lead to the enhancement of the river's usage at the same time, the author has failed to prove that the river's smell is the root of the problem or that the tackling of the problem will attract local residents to do sport activities on the riverside. Thus, the argument seems to be unwarranted.