Tapping Cascade Lock

G1 | Bruna Cirincione, Dondero Alessandro, Ferrari Andrea, Suglia Mariolina, Torsoli Cosimo

Tapping Cascade Locks •How local debats affect global controversy

Dealing with the problem of “Global Warming”, and in particular the thematic of “Freshwater resources and their management”, we had the opportunity to choose any of the many world controversy reletad to water: from the climate problems caused by pollution and human intervention in the territory, floods and sea level rising; we could deal with crises related to water management in developing countries, the political economical issues and ending up to wars based on controlling the blue “gold”.

Our goal was to maintain consistency with the previous research phase, where we focused on the global fresh water management. With this intention in mind, we tried to find a theme that was close to our everyday life, a dispute that somehow we wereconcerned personally, we could confront with it and to which we could contribute in a concrete way. So we decided to address the subject of debate on “bottled water”.

This theme, which initially may seem simple, if not trivial, presents indeed many issues that bind greater facets. Furthermore the bottled water problem closely concerns all of us, and it is very discussed in many contexts (from worldwide organizations and multinationals to everyone’s daily life). Analysing this controvercy could

bring greater sense of responsibility and trigger virtuous behaviour.

Speaking of bottled water seems easy, becuse we could just say that is wrong to buy something that you got for free at home, but if we take a look at the sales of bottled water in the United States, that is one of the greater consumer of bottled drinks together with China, we realize that the question is not simple at all: in the last decades the market of bottled water has grown exponentially with just a decrease in recent years (fig. 01).As said before, we thought that the issue was simply about "bottled water vs tap water", but digging deeper and researching further, we have discovered that it was not easy to understand as it seemed; actually, instead of a global discussion, we find out that this controversy was developping in many small cities all around the world each of which present different qualities.

Immediatly, as first step to realize the size of the discussion, we simply searched "bottled water" on Google; this way we gained the first 100 URLs through the instrument Harvester, and after a manual validation, we got our sheer corpus of analysis.

ANALYSIS REPORT

01 BOTTLE WATER CONSUMPTION Bottle water consumption form 1995 to 2015(estimate) Units: volum in millions liters Source: ZenithInternational

Geographical visualizzation showing research volume for “bottled water” query (Google Inside for Serch)

0

100

Once obtained the corpus of the 100 most relevant entities. We have identified the subjects and how they were related to each others through a manual semantic analysis and with the digital tool Versus. Meanwhile we did the same analytical process for the query “tap water”.

Using Issue Geographer, a digital tool of data geo-localization that shows where involved organizations are based on a geographical map, and Google Insight for Search that compares search volume patterns across specific parameters (regions, categories, time frames and properties), we realized that the discussion was developing mainly in the United States, Australia and South Africa (fig. 02).

Thanks to these tools, we noticed that the majority of the institutions and organizations involved in the controvercy were concentrated in the United States.

Therefore we decided to focus our research on the USA, but before that, we wondered if the former result were not affected by choosing English language for the Google queries.

Partially we was right, but analyzing the different "bottled water" pages on Wikipedia, in other languages, we realized that the English one was the only page to have an articulated debate and a page of discussion, while pages in other languages contained only summaries translated from English text (fig. 03).

03 COMPARING WIKIPEDIA PAGES Counting the characters of Bottled water page in different leanguages*

15.000

14.080 12.800

ENG

FRA

NED

ROM

2.571

9000

ESP

12.800

12.000

1.757

ITA

703

3.790

8575

6000 4900

12.372 3000

1995

RESEARCH PROTOCOL

02 SPEAKING ABOUT “BOTTLED WATER”

1997

1999

2001

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

2013

2015

26.465 29.728 OF DISCUSSION PAGE

*excluding ideographic languages

VERSUS

Query

Main actors identification

Digital Tools Manual Analysis

ALCHEMY Semanthic analysis

Corpus ISSUE GEOGRAPHER Server geo-localization

Google DMI Manual Analysis DensityDesign

GOOGLE QUERY

DMI HARVESTER

MANUAL VALIDATION

CORPUS

INSIGHT FOR SEARCH

-Bottled water -Tap water

Result: 100 Urls

- no PDF documents - no Wikipedia - no social networks

70 Urls

Query geo-localization

WIKIPEDIA ANALYSIS Comparison of “bottled water” page in different languages

SPECIFIC CASES IN USA Visualization of “bottled water sales” and “bottling plants impacts ” controversy in USA since 2000.

(Pdf Analysis)

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

MC CLOUD Population 1.101 CALIFORNIA Nestlé built a big water bottling plant, promising jobs to citiziens. Today they are still waiting for those jobs.

2009

2010

2011

2012

MCCLOUD ENUMCLAW ORTING KENNEBUNK FREYBURG SHAPLEIGH MECOSTA COUNTY WACISSA CASCADE LOCKS

ENUMCLAW ORTING

2008

CONCORD

Even considering the single United States country, we realized that the discussion was fed by many small specific cases, and that the controvercy was not strictly about “Bottled water versus tap water”, but rather between bottled water sales and bottling plants impacts on local areas. While the problem concerning bottled water sales is for the most part a matter of ethics, the bottling plants one instead, is more related to environmental impacts; moreover, both these aspects also fuels the debate on water privatization. After the identification of the most relevant cases, we choose to focus our study on the city of Cascade Locks, where the dispute is still open and developing nowadays (fig. 04).

Population 6.746 WASHINGTON Nestlé wanted to build a water bottling plant, but due to many debates it decided to leave the project.

2007

MECOSTA COUNTY

Population 10.669 WASHINGTON Nestlé wanted to build a water bottling plant, but the small town react: “Go tap someone else's spring”.

Population 42.798 MICHIGAN Nestlé wanted to build a water bottling plant.

But a permanent injunction ordered Nestlé to stop the procedure.

FREYBURG Population 3.083 MAINE Nestlé built a water pumping station to bottle its Poland Springs water.

CASCADE LOCKS Population 1.075 OREGON Nestlé wants to build a water bottling plant: the discussion is still open.

Maine

KENNEBUNK Population 10.798 MAINE Nestlé wanted to build a water bottling plant. But thanks to “Save Our Water” initiative, the project has not gone ahead.

CONCORD Population 17.580 MASSACHUSETTS Msr. Hill proposed banning the sale of bottled water from the town. The ban isn’t passed but it remains a significant attempt.

SHAPLEIGH Population 2.326 MAINE Nestlé wanted to build a water pumping station. But citizens voted a revolutionary ordinance that gave them the right to local self-governance and banned companies from drawing or selling their water.

WACISSA Population 380 FLORIDA Nestlé wanted to build a water bottling plant along the river, but the local comunities have strongly rejected the proposal.

Closed Dispute Open Dispute

ALCHEMY Semantic analysis

PDF ANALYSIS Choice of 10 specific cases

FOCUS

FOCUS

GOOGLE QUERY

DMI HARVESTER

MANUAL VALIDATION

USA choise as study case

Selection of the case still open [Cascade Locks]

“Cascade locks”+Nestlé

Result: 100 Urls

- no Wikipedia - no social networks

THE CASE OF CASCADE LOCKS

These list contains only domain pages.

http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org http://afdportland.wordpress.com http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com http://aquadoc.typepad.com http://dawnwinalski.comforcechange.com http://grassrootspeople.blogspot.com http://greengopost.com http://keepnestleout.wordpress.com http://lavidalocavore.org http://list.pacificgreens.org http://news.opb.org http://online.wsj.com http://peakwater.org http://projectupdates.nestlewaterspnw.com http://ridenbaugh.com http://salsa.democracyinaction.org http://stopnestlewaters.org http://stopnestlewaters.org http://test.kboo.fm http://topics.oregonlive.com http://willamettelive. http://www.afd-pdx.org http://www.almostallthetruth.com http://www.arizonaenergy.org http://www.askbiography.com http://www.bark-out.org http://www.causes.com http://www.dailykos.com http://www.disinfo.com http://www.econlife.com http://www.environmentoregon.org http://www.examiner.com http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org http://www.naturaloregon.org http://www.nestlewaterspnw.com http://www.northcentralpa.com http://www.opb.org http://www.oregonbusiness.com http://www.oregonlive.com http://www.pddnet.com http://www.portlandonline.com http://www.portlandtribune.com http://www.returnonreputation.com http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org http://www.taylormadewater.info http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org http://www.theaustralian.com.au http://www.thegreensupplychain.com http://www.triplepundit.com http://www.wellingtonwaterwatchers.ca http://www.wweek.com https://www.commondreams.org

Where the action is taking place: main actors, history and context visualization.

(Semantic analysis)

Nestlé proposal would involve a $50 million investment to construct a 250,000 square feet facility in Cascade Locks.

According to Nestlé, the plant would support 53 jobs, 48 of which would be open to the local employment pool. The Nestlé plant would bottle spring water and municipal water from the city of Cascade Locks under its Arrowhead and Pure Life brands.

Nestlé will not actually obtain water rights in the Columbia Gorge; it will purchase its spring and municipal water from the city of Cascade Locks as a commercial water customer. Nestlé will presumably enter into long-term contracts with the city to purchase this water at a specified price. What that price is, and whether it will be sufficient to cover the opportunity costs of the water as well as additional expenses and costs related to the project is unknown.

Cascade Locks is a city in Hood River County, Oregon. The city is surrounded by the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area. Development in this area is carefully regulated to protect the unique natural and scenic value of the National Scenic Areas. The Columbia river and its tributaries sorrounding the city have been central to the region’s culture and economy. The river is home to many species os fishes.

The population of the area was approximately 1.144 people; the city supports a relatively low proportion of jobs in town given the number of residents.Creating a diverse mix of employment opportunities is a top economic development priority for the city and Hood River County, but prospects for locating new industries to Cascade Locks are limited by its small land size and limits on expanding outside of the urban core into the National Scenic Area.

05 COLUMBIA RIVER GORGE NATIONAL SCENIC AREA COLUMBIA RIVER URBAN AREAS COUNTIES CLARK MULTNOMAH SKAMANIA HOOD RIVER KLICKITAT WASCO

CARSON

Oxbow Hatchery, constructed in 1913, is located approximately 1 mile east of Cascade Locks. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) Hatchery Management Policy defines hatchery programs as either Harvest or Conservation programs. The Harvest ones operate to enhance or maintain fisheries; the Conservation ones instead operate to maintain or increase the number of naturally produced fish, both without impairing naturally reproducing populations. ODFW also aims to utilize conventional supplementation, together with a program to prevent the extinction of the native Red Lake Sockeye population and to ensure a high probability of population persistence into the future.

The hatchery at Oxbow is used for interim egg incubation and early rearing of coho sockeye. No adult fish are collected or spawned at Oxbow and there are no fish released at the facility.

The hatchery obtains its water supply from Oxbow Springs through gravity flow.

WHITE SALMON /BINGEN

STEVENSON

NORTH BONNEVILLE CASCADE LOCKS

HOOD RIVER

DALLESPORT

MOSIER

THE DALLES

Miles 2

Nestlé Corporation has proposed building a bottled water facility in Cascade Locks, Oregon (Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area)(fig.05); the city is crossed by Columbia River, and enjoys a large presence of natural areas. The company would invest $50 million to construct the facility that would bottle spring water from nearby Oxbow Springs and municipal water from the city of Cascade Locks. Bottled water would then be shipped by truck to Portland for market distribution.

Nestlé wants to buy the spring water to bottle it under the Arrowhead brand, and municipal

water, under the Pure Life brand.

However the Oxbow Springs water rights are held by ODFW (Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife), that uses spring water to breed their fish hatcheries. Not being able to directly purchase water rights from ODFW, Nestlé needs Cascade Locks to buy the water rights ownership, in order to withdraw water from the city in exchange for money and jobs. Moreover this ownership exchange, have to be approved by th Oregon Government.

During the research, we found out that Nestlé, unlike other companies, like Coca-Cola

CORPUS

CONTEXTUALIZATION

70 Urls

Contents from PDF documents

0

2

4

or PepsiCo Inc., which collect the water to be bottled only from municipal water supply, Nestlé directly picks up water from springs: this industrial process is very debated, because it could potentially produce heavy environmental hardships in the area surrounding the bottling plants. It is interseting to notice that Nestlé is one of the main bottled water sellers in the USA; it is for this reason that during our first phase of the research on the "Bottled Water" dispute we have found so much material and many other cases releted to Nestlé.

powells.com

06 CONNECTION NETWORK How the URLs corpus are releated to each others.

(Gephi analysis) almostallthetruth.com

lavidalocavore.org

quantcast.com

circleofblue.org gmpg.org dailykos.com

news.opb.org peakwater.org/tag/greenwashing disinfo.com triplepundit.com

dawnwinalski.com

salsa.democracyinaction.org

npr.org sfgate.com

online.wsj.com

greengopost.com arizonaenergy.org

pbs.org

aquadoc.typepad.com

democracyinaction.org

nytimes.com

americanpowerblog.blogspot.com

ridenbaugh.com

environmentoregon.org oregon.sierraclub.org

opb.org

econlife.com

returnonreputation.com

nestle-watersna.com

portlandonline.com foodandwaterwatch.org keepnestleout.wordpress.com

stopnestlewaters.org

northcentralpa.com

examiner.com

naturaloregon.org portlandtribune.com stopcorporateabuse.org oregonlive.com

projectupdates.nestlewaterspnw.com grassrootspeople.blogspot.com

bark-out.org nestlewaterspnw.com test.kboo.fm

afdportland.wordpress.com

oregonbusiness.com

News

Nestlé

Environmentalist

Commercial

Organization

Cascade Locks

cascade-locks.or.us

defendingwaterincalifornia.org

theaustralian.com.au defendingwaterinmaine.org

afd-pdx.org

In degree thealliancefordemocracy.org

Out degree

Looking at fig.06, we can see all the connections between the actors, their relevance within the network, and how much they contribute to the discussion.

News websites have a similar behaviour among themselves, they are linked to several network nodes: they have a well-distributed number of output and input links. News websites don’t discuss frequently about the controversy, because they usually describe the facts in the occurrence

of specific events. The Food and Water Watch website behaves very differently, because it quotes the Cascade Locks case very often.

Although a large number of sites mentioned this case for its relevance, Food and Water Watch doesn’t quote any others website, apart an output link to another organization: Democracy in Action (fig. 07).

On the other hand, Nestlé websites, despite being deeply involved in the debate, do not

talk much about it, even though they entertain strong links between themselves. Obviously Nestlé got lots of incoming links, as it is quoted very often by other subjects involved in the controvercy (fig.08). This tool has been very usefull for our research project as it shows us the real structure of the Network and expecially the actors’ relations that establish the shape of the net. Without Gephi we wouldn’t be able to imagine those relations just form the Urls corpus.

ISSUE CRAWLER

MANUAL VALIDATION

GEPHI

VISUALIZATION

Relations between links

- no false links - no links with the same domain - “clean” link (only domain)

Relation between network links

Gephi graph elaboration

Even though its usefulness, Gephi is a tool that is very complex and has to be interpretated correctly: in the next pages we’ll try to show better what Gephi reveals us, focusing our attention on network main actors one at time, to point out every single relation they establish with the others actors.

powells.com

07 CONNECTION NETWORK Visualisation focused on Food and Water Watch network.

(Gephi analysis) almostallthetruth.com

lavidalocavore.org

quantcast.com

circleofblue.org gmpg.org dailykos.com

news.opb.org peakwater.org/tag/greenwashing disinfo.com triplepundit.com

dawnwinalski.com

salsa.democracyinaction.org

npr.org sfgate.com

online.wsj.com

pbs.org

aquadoc.typepad.com

democracyinaction.org

greengopost.com arizonaenergy.org

nytimes.com

americanpowerblog.blogspot.com

ridenbaugh.com

environmentoregon.org oregon.sierraclub.org

opb.org

econlife.com

returnonreputation.com portlandonline.com

nestle-watersna.com

foodandwaterwatch.org keepnestleout.wordpress.com

stopnestlewaters.org

northcentralpa.com

examiner.com

naturaloregon.org portlandtribune.com stopcorporateabuse.org oregonlive.com

projectupdates.nestlewaterspnw.com grassrootspeople.blogspot.com

bark-out.org nestlewaterspnw.com test.kboo.fm

afdportland.wordpress.com

oregonbusiness.com cascade-locks.or.us

defendingwaterincalifornia.org

theaustralian.com.au defendingwaterinmaine.org

afd-pdx.org

stopcorporateabuse naturaloregon.org

lavidalocavore.org gmpg.org

triplepundit.com democracyinaction.org

dailykos.com

ridenbaugh.com

aquadoc.typepad.com

online.wsj.com afd-pdx.org

stopnestlewaters.org

opb.org bark-out.org salsa.democracyinaction.org

foodandwaterwatch.org

keepnestleout.wordpress.com

oregonlive.com

thealliancefordemocracy.org

powells.com

08 CONNECTION NETWORK Visualisation focused on NestlĂŠ network.

(Gephi analysis) almostallthetruth.com

lavidalocavore.org

quantcast.com

circleofblue.org gmpg.org dailykos.com

news.opb.org peakwater.org/tag/greenwashing disinfo.com triplepundit.com

dawnwinalski.com

salsa.democracyinaction.org

npr.org sfgate.com

online.wsj.com

pbs.org

aquadoc.typepad.com

democracyinaction.org

greengopost.com arizonaenergy.org

nytimes.com

americanpowerblog.blogspot.com

ridenbaugh.com

environmentoregon.org oregon.sierraclub.org

opb.org

econlife.com

returnonreputation.com portlandonline.com

nestle-watersna.com

foodandwaterwatch.org keepnestleout.wordpress.com

stopnestlewaters.org

northcentralpa.com

examiner.com

naturaloregon.org portlandtribune.com stopcorporateabuse.org oregonlive.com

projectupdates.nestlewaterspnw.com grassrootspeople.blogspot.com

bark-out.org nestlewaterspnw.com test.kboo.fm

afdportland.wordpress.com

oregonbusiness.com cascade-locks.or.us

defendingwaterincalifornia.org

theaustralian.com.au defendingwaterinmaine.org

afd-pdx.org

portlandonline.com

afdportland.wordpress.com

projectupdates.nestlewaterspnw.com

nestlewaterspnw.com

defendingwaterinmaine.org

defendingwaterincalifornia.org

pbs.org nestle-watersna.com

environmentoregon.org

dawnwinalski.com

grassrootspeople.blogspot.com

npr.org

sfgate.com test.kboo.fm arizonaenergy.org

oregon.sierraclub.org

thealliancefordemocracy.org

greengopost.com

peakwater.org/tag/greenwashing

nytimes.com

quantcast.com

thealliancefordemocracy.org

09 CONNECTION NETWORK Visualisation focused on Environmentalists’ network.

(Gephi analysis) almostallthetruth.com

lavidalocavore.org

quantcast.com

circleofblue.org gmpg.org dailykos.com

news.opb.org peakwater.org/tag/greenwashing disinfo.com triplepundit.com

dawnwinalski.com

salsa.democracyinaction.org

npr.org sfgate.com

online.wsj.com

aquadoc.typepad.com

democracyinaction.org

greengopost.com arizonaenergy.org

pbs.org nytimes.com

americanpowerblog.blogspot.com

ridenbaugh.com

environmentoregon.org oregon.sierraclub.org

opb.org

econlife.com

returnonreputation.com portlandonline.com

nestle-watersna.com

foodandwaterwatch.org keepnestleout.wordpress.com

stopnestlewaters.org

northcentralpa.com

examiner.com

naturaloregon.org portlandtribune.com stopcorporateabuse.org oregonlive.com

projectupdates.nestlewaterspnw.com grassrootspeople.blogspot.com

bark-out.org nestlewaterspnw.com test.kboo.fm

afdportland.wordpress.com

oregonbusiness.com cascade-locks.or.us

defendingwaterincalifornia.org

theaustralian.com.au defendingwaterinmaine.org

afd-pdx.org

theaustralian.com.au

examiner.com

oregonbusiness.com

portlandtribune.com

americanpowerblog.blogspot.com

cascade-locks.or.us

powells.com

disinfo.com

almostallthetruth.com

northcentralpa.com

news.opb.org

returnonreputation.com

thealliancefordemocracy.org

econlife.com

circleofblue.org

powells.com

WHERE THE CONTROVERSY IS DISCUSSED Visualization of where are located the organizations involved in the discussion.

(Issue Geographer)

By using other analysis tools, like Versus and Alchemy (fig.10), we immediately noted that news websites got more links with other network actors, especially with organizations; on the other hand, environmentalist ones are very self-referential: other network subjects rarely quote all names and all entities that the environmentalists mention.

Later, seeking that Cascade Locks was mentioned several times in the corpus, the hypothesis that news and organizations websites were the main subjects, who discuss about this case, was confirmed; moreover it was clear that Nestlé doesn’t mention it at all.

At the same time, we tried to geo-localize the phenomenon, by manually analysing Alchemy results (fig. 11), by using Issue Geogrpher (fig.12), Google Insights for Search, to show then how it has developed in the United States over last years, and a . It is interesting to observe that even if the act takes place in the small city of Cascade Locks, it is discussed in many other places around the United States. At first, the dispute started from Oregon, and then spread out reaching others States, such as Nord Dakota, Colorado, Idaho, California, Florida, Washington, Maine, New York, Massachusetts, and Arizona. Indeed, many of these places were involved in other similar controversy, emerged in earlier steps of our study; even though they were already closed, their “unsolved” situations keep emerging during our analysis.

12 COLUMBIA RIVER GORGE NATIONAL SCENIC AREA

WASHINGTON

OREGON

NORTH DAKOTA

MAINE IDAHO

NEW YORK MICHIGAN

MASSACHUSETTS KENTUCKY

ARIZONA MISSISSIPPI CALIFORNIA

FLORIDA

10

11 THE 10 MOST CITED U.S. STATES IN CASCADE LOCKS CONTROVERCY (Data from alchemy analysis)

OREGON CALIFORNIA WASHINGTON MICHIGAN MAINE COLORADO IDAHO FLORIDA OKLAHOMA MASSACHUSETTS

VERSUS Main actors identification

ALCHEMY

VISUALIZATION

Semanthic analysis

Tag cloud

ISSUE GEOGRAPHER Server geo-localization

INSIGHT FOR SEARCH Query geo-localization

HOW CASCADE LOCKS’S QUOTES THE CLOSED CASES Visualization of how the actors involved in the Cascade Locks case talk about other cases.

(Google Scraper+Fineo)

After analyzing the specific situation of Cascade Locks, we wanted to emphasize the relations with other cases involved in the "bottled water" controversy. Starting from the cases identified in our first semantic analysis, we have considered others U.S. cases, that we found being almost all related to Nestlé Waters company. Trough Google Scraper and Fineo, we’ve found that the other cases were highly cited in our corpus of URLs (fig. 13).

Nestlé sites don’t mention these cities very much, almost never, despite being primarily and deeply involved in the dispute; this confirms that the company is partially active in the debate, even in relation to other places.

The discussion seems to be carried out primarily by news sites, which report specific events related to the various cases, indeed they only report what is happening in local communities, without addressing the issue on a

general level. Environmentalists instead occupy a different position as they are more involved in the dynamics of the various local cases. We then noticed a group of websites that stand out slightly from the other categories: the websites of online petitions: these entities do not have a real active part in the disputes, but rather serve as tools for local communities to bring up their own voice, to increase the consent, to improve active participation in the problem and to

generate a return media to catch the attention of the whole country, even the world, on those small communities involved.

13 CASES RELEVANCE NESTLÉ

nestlewaterspnw.com projectupdates.nestlewaterspnw.com

Nestlé News

NEWS

Petition

examiner.com askbiography.com oregonlive.com topics.oregonlive.com dailykos.com online.wsj.com commondreams.org portlandtribune.com theaustralian.com.au portlandonline.com wweek.com opb.org disinfo.com pddnet.com test.kboo.fm americanpowerblog.blogspot.com news.opb.org ridenbaugh.com taylormadewater.info northcentralpa.com arizonaenergy.org aquadoc.typepad.com econlife.com peakwater.org list.pacificgreens.org triplepundit.com almostallthetruth.com lavidalocavore.org willamettelive.com afdportlans.wordpress.com afd-pdx.org returnonreputation.com dawnwinalski.com

Environmentalist

PETITIONS

environmentoregon.org causes.com salsa.democracyinaction.org thealliancefordemocracy.org

ENVIRONMENTALISTS stopnestlewaters.org forcechange.com foodandwaterwatch.org stopcorporateabuse.org action.foodandwaterwatch.org keepnestleout.wordrpess.com wellingtonwaterwatchers.ca bark-out.org

FOCUS

SCRAPER

FINEO

Comparison between Cascade Locks case and the closed ones

How many times other cases are quoted in Cascade Locks corpus of URLs

Visualization of Google Scraper results

1% 83% 10% 6%

Concord

1% 70% 11% 18%

McCloud

2% 83% 10% 5%

Enumclaw

2% 74% 4% 20%

Orting

2% 70% 10% 18%

Kenneburk

3% 67% 3% 27%

Freyburg

3% 55% 5% 37%

Shapleigh

1% 46% 1% 52%

Mecosta County

16% 53% 2% 29%

Wacissa

14 REALTIONS BETWEEN LOCAL CASES

Concord McCloud Enumclaw Orting Kenneburk Fryeburg Shapleigh MecostaCountry Wacissa Cascade Locks 2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2011

CASCADE LOCKS

CONCORD

WACISSA

KENNEBURK

ENUMCLAW

2010

FRYEBURG SHAPLEIGH

ORTING

AVERAGE TREND

After that, we used Google Insight for Search to compare the volume of closed cases search in the U.S. Looking at fig. 14, we can see the trends in the volume of searches from 2004 to 2011 for each city. Looking at the peaks on the visualization, we can see how other search volumes levels will also increase when a debate turns on a closed cases. This is furthermore a confirmation of the fact that all the cases, although closed, are nourishing the controversy over the time. Moreover charts trends and peaks show discontinuous flow: this confirms what we have said previously, namely, that are the news websites to drive and shape the discussion among the media, each time turning on the attention to the cases releted to the dispute.

INSIGHT FOR SEARCH Trends in the volume of searches for all cases

CONCLUSIONS Trying to map the entire controversy, from what has emerged by the analysis performed using the different tools we menage to draw some final conclusions.

In the first step of our work, we realized that the initial objectives we had in charge were not very helpfull. Initially all the research analysis was based on the clash of opinions between the use of bottled water over tap water: the discussion was based on a series of observations between those in favor of bottled water, multinational producers such as Nestle, Coca-Cola, etc.., and several organizations including IBWA (International Bottled Water Association), and on the other side, those who oppose to them: organizations like EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), environmentalists, activist, etc. Generally, what emerges from the first entities identified, was

quite predictable. The results obtained have confirmed what we initially hypothesized previously. Moreover, in our first approach, after the confrontation between the two sides of the debate over bottled water, a first observation was to note that the arguments against bottled water (pollution , cost, transport, etc..), were much stronger than the elements in its favor, and despite this in the last decades bottled water sales havenever decreased.

We wondered why, perhaps for lack of confidence in tap water? or because the communication is very predominant in the case of bottled water? With these questions, our first objective was to identify the dynamics that could affect the sale. However, we realized that the approach was wrong, as we often gained inconclusive results that we reported back to the starting point.

In the second phase, we tried to find out step by step how the dispute developed. Therefore,

to deepen our theme, after several semantic analysis, and having identified several case studies, we decided to change angle and focus on a specific case to see better and more closely the dynamics of the dispute. In fact the situation was so much different; at first we thought that the problem was just an ethical matter, but after careful observation, we noticed that in reality, it was also environmental, political and economic.

The final step of the analysis was made in the monitoring reports that the case of Cascade Locks had opened against former U.S. cases, and this has led us to further confirmation of how all these individual cases formed a network of similar discussions quoting each other, and how these, in turn, constitute the dynamic nodes of a global network that fuel the discussion from time to time, increasing the volume of the dispute on the sale of bottled water around the world.