60.1.10 Letter to the editor: Sites are needed

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I didn't circle this during BR, and I am really struggling to justify D over B. Here is my breakdown:

This is a weaken/descriptive flaw question.

Sites are needed for disposal of this thing (whatever it is). However, the approach you want would hurt the fishing business. Evidence of this is a petition that was signed by over 20,000 people opposing your approach and favoring this other approach (sand capped pits).

What I am looking for: I think the argument is pretty simple enough to understand. Is the petition really evidence that the other guy's approach would actually hurt the fishing business? What if all the people who signed the petition were corporate shills or fisherman lobbyists? Also, the argument implies that the other approach (sand capped pits) would not hurt the fishing business. We know nothing about this other approach.

Answer A: The author doesn't straw man the editor. The author is using evidence to support his claim (even though it is weak evidence).

Answer B: This is what I picked, and I was 100% confident. Doesn't the argument do this? Doesn't the argument just throw in this random other approach (sand capped pits) without establishing that it could work? We have no evidence that it actually fits the needs of disposing the spoils. Viable means "capable of working successfully; feasible." The idea of "one indication" to me introduces evidence/premise for the conclusion. Wouldn't the "indication"/evidence/support given be completely irrelevant if their proposed alternate approach wasn't viable?

Answer C: The author doesn't indicate what his interests are.

Answer I am having a very tough time understanding how this one is correct. I eliminated this over the word "testimony." How is signing a petition testimony? According to Google, testimony means "a formal written or spoken statement, especially one given in a court of law." A petition is "a formal written request, typically one signed by many people, appealing to authority with respect to a particular cause." How are these two the same thing? Specifically, the idea that a "written statement" is the same thing as a "written request" seems extremely dubious to me. If the word "testimony" were replaced with "appeal," then I could better understand what this was going for. Testimony seems such a bad synonym for what the evidence actually is in the argument.

Answer E: No third option? We don't care. We only care about the two options in the argument.

gantzerj

So the conclusion here is that the editors approach is wrong.
Premise: 20,000 people have signed a petition saying that they would favor the sand capped approach.

So the argument isn't saying that the sand capped approach is better or that it wouldn't hurt the commercial operations. It's only using the petition that favors this approach and opposes the editor's, to say that the editor's approach is wrong and would hurt the fishing operations. The only piece of evidence we have to say that the editor's approach is wrong is the 20,000 people that have signed a petition favoring another approach. That's just really crappy reasoning to use. So what if 20,000 people have signed a petition favoring something else and opposing the editor's, that my no means establishes that what the editor has said is wrong, unless we know that people have some sort of expertise to say so. They could be absolutely random people, or like you said, lobbyists. Just because 20,000 have signed a petition, we can't have it as evidence that the editors approach with hurt commercial fishing.

We essentially don't care about whether the sand capped approach is viable or not and that's what makes answer B wrong. Both the approaches could be right, or both could be wrong. To use a petition which has been signed by many people to say that one is wrong makes no sense.

D. I can see why you're confused about the word "testimony". But if you try to move away from the very precise definition of it (the restriction of the word to legal cases only) it fits in. A testimony is in essence a declaration. Over here, the testimony or declaration of the people who have signed the petition is in favor of the sand capped method. But why should be pay attention to this declaration/testimony unless we're aware that they're experts?

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Thanks @gantzerj

Yeah, the conclusion is different than what I originally believed, so I probably could have eliminated B right off the bat. D would have been left after POE.