The recreational use of water has not always ranked very high among water use priorities. In fact, recreational activities generally are a by-product of other types of water use. A dam is built to control flooding or generate power, and the resulting lake then is available for recreation. Further, recreation has been considered a secondary water use partly because it is mostly nonconsumptive, and consumption traditionally defined legitimacy of water uses in the West. Also, the benefits of water recreation are not always readily apparent, nor easily measured.