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Show J. D. Hunt Answers Critics Of USU Road Questlonaire Dr. John D. Hunt, Chairman Chair-man of the Institute for the Study of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism, Utah State University, Uni-versity, expressed regret that individuals disagreeing with results of a recent poll found it necessary to belittle the validity of the survey. Runt indicated that the particular survey was designed design-ed to give local residents of southern Utah an opportunity to express their opinions on highway routing alternatives in the vicinity of Canyonlands National Park and Glen Can. yen National Recreation Area. Ar-ea. "We believe in the importance impor-tance of people expressing ' themselves on local issues, and the Institute provides that opportunity through its surveys," Dr. Hunt said. "And, needless to say, we are aware that the results of certain polls won't always prove unanimously popular. That was the case with the Trans-Escalante Highway poll. "The highway department proposals have been controversial contro-versial in the southern Utah area, and we recognize that. We made every effort to make the questionnaire a simple one and we made every ev-ery effort to be honest, unbiased un-biased and nalytical. We certainly cer-tainly don't consider the findings worthless, and we are sorry that some individuals individ-uals who disagree with the published results feel they must discredit the validity of-the of-the survey. "We are also concerned that some individuals may use part of the survey data out of context, thus distoit-ing distoit-ing the resuits. We interpreted interpre-ted the survey data to indicate indi-cate that more than nine out of ten southern Uah resi. dens favored highway development devel-opment in the region, and that local sentiment favored construction of the controversial controver-sial Trans-Escalante highway high-way from Bullfrog . Basin to Glen Canyon City." The director of the Institute said that anyone interested in reviewing the survey may receive a cony of the methodology, meth-odology, questionnaire, and results, by writing the -In-' Etitute fo rthe Study of Outdoor Out-door Recreation and 'Tourism, 'Tour-ism, Utah State University, Logan, Utah 84322. |