Two Editorials on Removing Vardon Dam: Syntax and Stance

1. Answer: A restored version reads "Conservation groups and state regulators are now proposing removal" or "The relicensing process now puts removal on the table." Leaving the agent out makes removal sound like something happening to Lockhaven rather than something people are arguing for, which lets the writer avoid describing the proposers or their reasons.

2. Answer: Likely candidates are "the decline," "some loss of habitat," "a removal," and "two increases." Verb forms with subjects include "the fishery declined," "the dam flooded and blocked habitat," "the state would remove the dam," and "the town raised property taxes twice." Each noun form hides the party that acted, protecting the dam operator and, in the last case, whoever set the taxes.

3. Answer: Editorial A concedes with "It should be said that the fishery has declined," and Editorial B concedes with "Supporters of the dam point to the marina and the campground, and those businesses are real." Editorial B gives up more, because its concession is a full main clause that grants the point outright, while Editorial A's concession is framed by an agentless "it should be said" and is immediately narrowed by "yet the decline began well before the current license period." Also accept A's "Although a free-flowing river has value, that value has not been quantified for Lockhaven," whose subordinate clause is overridden at once by the main clause, which supports the same conclusion that B gives up more.

4. Answer: Editorial B's claim can be checked, since the data box reports that 6 to 11 percent of the estimated run passes the ladder each year, a monitored figure the operator would hold. Editorial A's "some loss of habitat occurred upstream" names no amount and no actor. The data box's 31 miles of blocked spawning habitat shows the scale that "some loss" leaves vague, but because A commits to no amount, the sentence cannot be shown false. Editorial B therefore takes on a heavier burden and meets it, while Editorial A avoids the burden by writing a sentence with no amount to disprove. Accept answers that cite the 31-mile row this way.

5. Answer: Editorial A calls it "4.5 megawatts of carbon-free generation" that removal would "eliminate," so the modifier and the verb make the figure a loss of a public good. Editorial B calls it "4.5 megawatts, less than one modern wind turbine array," so a comparison makes the same figure small. The framing words are "carbon-free" and "eliminate" against "less than one modern wind turbine array."

6. Answer: The clause uses a passive infinitive, "to be taken away," which deletes the agent and also softens "remove" into "take away." Named in the active voice, the sentence would read something like "the town has not asked state regulators to remove the dam," which shifts attention to a specific decision maker and makes the sentence easier to dispute.

Writing task exemplar. The fictional town of Lockhaven should support removing the fictional Vardon Dam rather than paying to relicense it. The dam blocks 31 miles of spawning habitat, and the ladder installed in 1974 has passed only 6 to 11 percent of the estimated run in the years it was monitored, so the structure that was supposed to solve the problem has not solved it in five decades. Relicensing would require a passage upgrade estimated at 41 million dollars to protect 4.5 megawatts of generation, an amount of power a single wind array can match. Editorial A makes the strongest opposing point when it argues that the reservoir supports the marina and the campground, and that point deserves an answer rather than a dismissal. The state and the operator should fund a transition for those businesses out of the money the upgrade would have cost, because a river that runs 31 miles farther will support guiding, rafting, and riverfront property that a 240-acre reservoir cannot. Lockhaven can lose the reservoir and keep an economy, yet it cannot keep both the reservoir and the fishery.