Question:
"At present, Mason City residents seldom use the nearby Mason River for any kind of recreational activity, even though surveys of the region's residents consistently rank water sports (swimming, fishing, and boating) as a favorite form of recreation. Since there have been complaints about the quality of the water in the river, residents must be avoiding the river because they think that it is not clean enough. But that situation is about to change: the agency responsible for rivers in our region has announced plans to clean up Mason River. Therefore, recreational use of the river is likely to increase, so the Mason City council will need to increase its budget for improvements to the publicly owned lands along the Mason River."

Answer:
Within this passage, an argument between the residents of Mason city and the Mason City park department is described. Within this argument, the Mason City residents state that they rank water sports among their recreational activities. The argument then depends on this assumption to state that the Mason City park department should devote a larger budget to the maintenance of riverside recreational facilities. This argument of the Mason City residents is also found in the statement that there have been complaints from residents about the quality of the river's water and the river's smell.

This statement, and the statement regarding the citizen's love for water sports are both needed in order to evaluate the argument. The citizen's love for water sports by itself is not a strong enough argument to convince the park department that something needs to be done about the river, which is surely why the statement about the quality of the water is included. The possibility of the water being unsafe would certainly strengthen the argument that the budget to maintain Mason river needs to be increased. However, a few more questions should be answered before the budget increase request should be granted. First of all, has an official test on the quality of the river been conducted? Does the city know what pollutants are in the water that are causing a smell? Are there any factories nearby dumping waste into the water? Increasing the budget on the maintenance of the river would not fix the issue of water quality if there are active pollutants being put in the water. On top of that, who are the people that are sending in complaints of the water quality? Are they biased about the outcome of this issue?

Later in the statement it is said that the state announced plans to clean up the Mason River. It also states that the use of the river will likely increase due to this cleaning-up, and that the city government should then devote a larger budget to riverside recreational facilities. This argument is dependent on a few unspoken assumptions. First of all, it is dependent on the belief that the Mason River will certainly be cleaned up, and that it will be cleaned up to a quality that lives up to the standards of the residents of Mason City. This argument is also dependent on the assumption that if the river is cleaned up, a larger percentage of the residents of Mason City will find the time to devote to water sports if the river is cleaned up. Lastly, this argument is dependent on the the assumption that the city even has the funds to devote a larger amount of money to the maintenance of riverside recreational stations. All in all, this issue has several aspects that must be considered before any kind of budget chance is approved.