
A Coca-Cola plant in Mexico uses 1.08M liters of water per day as wells dry up - colinprince
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/41916-coca-cola-sucks-wells-dry-in-chiapas-forcing-residents-to-buy-water
======
wyc
> ...the company has permits for two wells to extract a total of 499,918 cubic
> meters of water per year, or 499.9 million liters. In 2016, the company
> extracted 78.8 percent of the permitted total.

So the government gave Coke the permits, Coke used under 80% of the agreed
amount, and now it's a crisis? It has the markings of some severe utilities
planning blunder.

> "The city has been growing significantly since the 1970s," he says in an
> interview at his office, which has a view of Huitepec mountain, where Coca-
> Cola extracts its water. "But in San Cristobal, there was no urban planning.
> And that's been aggravated by public policies that don't pay attention to
> the Indigenous people of the state."

That sort of gets at the real problem.

There are a lot of questions. Would things would actually get better if Coke
were to shut down operations? How many people would stop drawing salaries? How
much tax revenue loss does the government face with halted operations? Would
the freed up water volume be enough to avert disaster? Does the drought affect
everyday citizens or farmers the most? Are there any other environmental
externalities that result from the Coke plant?

These are some of the tough questions that we need to answer before we can
readily assign blame to megacorps. It's easy to hate large companies, and I
dislike my fair share, but boiling this situation down into a headliner
shaming corporate avarice may not be the best way to make progress. Maybe they
should shut down the plant, or maybe they shouldn't--I don't know, and it
shouldn't be for armchair economists thousands of miles away to decide. It
just seems more complicated than the solicited visceral emotions may suggest.

~~~
panarky
Coke is huge in this part of Chiapas, especially in indigenous areas.

I was there last spring, and my guide said Coca-Cola bribed the village
curanderos (spiritual healers) to increase the consumption of Coke, so they
incorporated it into religious rituals [0].

The water isn't safe to drink, and Coke can be cheaper than milk or formula,
so many moms feed their babies Coke instead [1].

The point is, when the megacorp has subverted democracy from the national
leaders [1] to the regional leaders all the way down to the village healers,
how can you not hold the megacorp accountable?

[0]
[https://costumbresporelmundo.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/tum...](https://costumbresporelmundo.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/tumblr_mbhn3smhdm1qa3j75o1_500-all-
things-mexico.jpg)

[1] [http://robinewing.com/2013/09/22/cola-consumption-and-the-
ch...](http://robinewing.com/2013/09/22/cola-consumption-and-the-chamula-
indians/)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicente_Fox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicente_Fox)

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
What kind of extra profits do you think Coke brings in from the excess
consumption from religious rituals of Spiritual Healers?

Lets say Chiapas (3.4 million people) has (10% population of Spiritual
Healers) = 340,000 Spiritual Leaders.

Each spiritual leader will now purchase a 1 Liter coke for a religious
ceremony EVERY DAY that they otherwise would not have. Coke costs .73 pesos
per liter in Chiapas. 340,000 x .73 Pesos = 248,200 Pesos per day.

248,200 Pesos coverts to $13,992.88 USD per day.

$13,992.88 x 365 (days in a year) = $5,107,401.20 USD Total extra coke
consumption.

So Coke is now possibly selling 5 million USD more dollars per year of coke
with this scheme. You must subtract the cost of making coke which we do not
know, and the cost of the "bribes", to find Coke's total profit here.

But as someone involved in marketing the potential downside of this scandal
doesn't seem worth the extra 5 million in sales from Coke used during
religious rituals in Chiapas.

It seems more likely to me that if mothers are feeding their babies Coke
instead of the expensive milk, or contaminated water, that the Spiritual
Healers are making the same decision as everyone else. That Coke is the
safest, most cost effective and pleasant drink available.

Full Disclosure: I am drinking my morning Diet Dr. Pepper as I type this.

~~~
Spooky23
Coca Cola has always a parasitic brand that attaches to things to sell
product. You are forgetting about the implicit religious endorsement of the
spiritual healer using Coke. That endorsement neutralizes negative factors.
It's a sugary drink, but it must be good if it is part of religious ritual!

The high level process is: Create need (subvert the healers' credibility),
make the product indispensable (attach to healing ritual), link to outcome and
provide a sample (feeling better = Coke)

Most infamously, Nestle used techniques like this to sell powdered baby
formula in third world countries -- a practice that literally killed thousands
of children in the process. In the United States, Coke is co-branded with lots
of other things that people like: McDonald's, Movies, Christmas (Santa =
Coke), etc. Coke is _the_ master of applying this marketing pattern.

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
I appreciate the point you are making, and I don't disagree for the most part
on Coke's branding process.

But does that type of strategy extend to local communities and Spiritual
Healers?

I don't think the math supports that. The team of "expert consultants" who
would come up with a plan like this and institute it would charge more in
their salaries than the increased consumption in Chiapas is worth. Also, ask
yourself why a strategy like that would even be necessary in Chiapas???

You don't need to trick people into buying Coke when they don't have access to
clean and affordable water.

~~~
colanderman
I think the idea would be less "sell more Coke" and more "become an integral
part of the lives of the voting population of the town our factory is in".
When Coke is holy, those who would stand against it are heretics.

------
mad_tortoise
So where I'm from we have a similar problem yet no end in site. After last
years summer we had one of the worst droughts this region has ever had, but
then it went into winter. It didn't rain much this winter and now we're back
in summer... With water restrictions starting the summer as bad as they were
when we ended it.

To the point of this though. One of the worlds largest breweries is situated
in my city. My country has a horrendous alcohol problem, to the extent where
paying farm labourers in booze only got outlawed just over 20 years ago.

Anyway this brewery makes most of the beer in the Southern Hemisphere, yet it
was able to get so large because it is right on top of one of the biggest
springs, and they claimed riparian rights many years ago.

My problem being is that up until this year, for the past 3 years, the public
was allowed access to the spring on their land. Now they are denying the
public access while we go through a drought and they continue to produce beer
for next to nothing as they don't pay a cent for their biggest ingredient. Now
I want to stop them making beer while we are in a drought, but in a country
run by alcohol makers that will surely either be an impossible task or end up
getting me killed.

~~~
_h_o_d_
Can you name the brewery / city?

~~~
mad_tortoise
Cape Town, South Africa. SABMiller, which was recently bought for £69 billion
by Anheuser-Busch InBev.

~~~
theoh
Specifically this brewery, I'm guessing: [http://www.sab.co.za/the-sab-
story/the-story-of-newlands-bre...](http://www.sab.co.za/the-sab-story/the-
story-of-newlands-brewery/) [http://www.702.co.za/articles/250909/sab-urges-
members-of-th...](http://www.702.co.za/articles/250909/sab-urges-members-of-
the-public-to-stop-abusing-source-of-free-water)

~~~
mad_tortoise
Yes that's the one.

------
t1o5
This. The southern Indian state of Kerala successfully resisted and shutdown
this company for good. Even the state made legislation to sue the company for
those affected by its ruthless exploitation of ground water.

The factory was in the Palakkad district of Kerala which has historically low
levels of ground water. The company was extracting more water than agreed to.
The politics behind approving this plant in an already water deprived area is
another story. The villagers were experiencing health problems, water
depletion in their wells.

I would say the politicians approved this plant and the people shut it down.
Even there was a smear campaign in the state against Coke depicting it as an
effective insecticide so that people would stop consuming it.

This is not an isolated incident of foreign companies exploiting a third world
country. I do not understand what companies means when they say "responsibly
sourced". People need jobs and salaries, but not at the cost of their own
environment & health.

[http://www.righttowater.info/rights-in-practice/legal-
approa...](http://www.righttowater.info/rights-in-practice/legal-approach-
case-studies/case-against-coca-cola-kerala-state-india/)

------
3pt14159
Water is a tricky thing. Take almonds for example. One almond takes about 4
liters of water to produce. With 1.6 billion _pounds_ of almonds grown per
year we're looking at almost 2.5 trillion liters of water. This is just one
nut. Pistachios and walnuts use similar amounts of water, so do other things
we eat like broccoli.

I blame Coca-Cola and their ilk for the obesity epidemic, but water shortages
are more caused by farming and climate change than they are by breweries or
bottling plants.

~~~
Alex3917
> Pistachios and walnuts use similar amounts of water, so do other things we
> eat like broccoli.

What does this really mean though? In New England we have Walnut trees growing
everywhere, and no one is watering them. If anything they're locking water
into the soil that would otherwise just evaporate.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
Those walnut trees are growing because of rainwater. They're not a problem.
And if farmed nuts we're grown in similar locations, that would also be fine.

But most almonds and pistachios are grown in a desert, with water extracted
from ground-water aquifers. Without the wells, the almonds would not grow.

~~~
s0rce
I don't think the central valley of California is classified as a desert, it
may be dry in the summer but it's not a desert.

~~~
sizzzzlerz
The southern part is. Further north, it's classified as a Mediterranean
climate. I'd suggest the western side is a desert as well. It's only possible
to grow crops there by importing water from the northern part of the state.
With out that water, it would look like dry mountains to the immediate west
along I-5. It only averages a few inches of rain per year.

------
grecy
This exact situation in Venezuela made me think Hugo Chávez was not always
completely nuts with _some_ of his ideas.

He was sick of multinationals like Coke buying water for a couple of cents a
mega-liter. Coke would then add some sugar and color to it before selling it
back to the people for dollars per liter. The expensive purification of that
water was paid for by tax revenue.

Chávez decided this was not right, and put an extremely heavy tax on multi-
nationals buying "resources" from Venezuela and doing that.

Personally, I think the world would be a better place if that was the law
everywhere.

On a related note, Juneau, the capital of Alkasa needs a new water
purification plant, theirs is running beyond capacity. The proposal was to
increase tax so everyone pays for it. It came to light Holland-America (cruise
line) buys millions of gallons for a tiny, tiny fraction of the price that
locals pay. When it was suggested to Holland-America they should pay a little
more to help fund the new purification plant, Holland-America simply
threatened to stop bringing cruise ships to Juneau. So now the residents pay
more tax so that Holland-America can continue to buy millions of gallons for
much cheaper than the locals pay!

~~~
ams6110
I really don't think you can put Hugh Chávez into any argument about making
the world a better place. Venezuela is a disaster, and the human suffering is
inexcusable.

~~~
stun
Yeah its Chavez's fault. No mention of sanctions, sanctions. The people who
are obsessed with sanctions don't care about the humantarian impact as long as
they get what they want.

~~~
dashundchen
On a related note, the Trump administration exempted Venezuelan state owned
oil company Citgo from the recent round of American sanctions.

Citgo happens to employ former Trump campaign advisors as lobbyists.

[http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/348007-trump-
ex...](http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/348007-trump-exempts-
citgo-from-venezuela-sanctions)

------
gus_massa
The article is not very clear. It looks like most of the problem is caused by
population grow, without good infrastructure. Not by Coca-Cola.

Also, this is misleading:

> _FEMSA reports that it uses 56.9 billion liters of water a year in its
> operations across Latin America. In Mexico, the company holds 40 water
> permits._

The 56.9 billon liters seams to be a lot and it is a lot, but it's the total
in Latin America. But this number is not related to the problem in Chiapas.
How much water does the plant in Chiapas use?

~~~
saganus
It says:

"The Chiapas branch of Conagua confirmed to Truthout that the company has
permits for two wells to extract a total of 499,918 cubic meters of water per
year, or 499.9 million liters. In 2016, the company extracted 78.8 percent of
the permitted total."

(Conagua is the National Water Comission)

------
corpMaverick
This article is just exploiting our desire to hate corporations.

What ever amount of water Coca-cola is taking it is surely a drop in the
bucket compared to other uses of water. More likely it is a problem of water
being contaminated for other causes. Chiapas is in the middle of the
rainforest. They get 120 inches of rainfall a year. In any case their problem
is that they get too much rain.

~~~
benjaminl
This is exactly what it is. 1.08 million liters of water, sounds like a lot,
but needs to be put into context of other uses of water.

Agriculture is one of the biggest uses of water. The average US irrigated farm
uses 1.6 [0] acre-feet of water per acre of land. Since 1.08 million liters is
~0.9 acre-feet of water. Coca-Cola is using 319.6 acre-feet of water a year
which is equivalent water usage, in average, to an 178 acre farm. This is a
very modest farm.

This wasn't Coca-Cola we were talking about, but a small 178 acre family farm.
This discussion wouldn't be happening.

If you want to complain about Coca-Cola, fine. Perhaps attack it business
practices or its contribution to obesity, but it is disingenuous to attack its
use of water, when the amount of water used is a very small fraction of farm
and industrial uses of water.

[0] - [https://ageconomists.com/2015/04/20/acres-and-acre-feet-a-
lo...](https://ageconomists.com/2015/04/20/acres-and-acre-feet-a-look-at-
irrigation-trends-in-the-us/)

~~~
corpMaverick
Thanks to put it in numbers, I didn't know where to start. But I know that I
use a LOT more water than what I drink.

Certainly their contribution to obesity is major reason to complain about
Coca-Cola.

------
patorjk
I have some family in McCloud, CA. Apparently this was a big concern when
Nestle came to town and wanted their water. There ended up being a big legal
battle, but in the end the town won [1]. I forget all of the details, but
there was some shadiness on Nestle's part. They initially told people the new
water plant would bring jobs back to the town, but when residents looked into
it, they discovered almost everything would be automated, and only a hand full
of new jobs would be created.

[1]
[http://www.alternet.org/story/142645/after_6-year_battle%2C_...](http://www.alternet.org/story/142645/after_6-year_battle%2C_mccloud%2C_ca_defeats_water_bottling_giant_nestle)

~~~
amelius
> They initially told people the new water plant would bring jobs back to the
> town, but when residents looked into it, they discovered almost everything
> would be automated, and only a hand full of new jobs would be created.

Why didn't they just make it part of the contract?

------
xabi
Same in India:

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/18/indian-o...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/18/indian-
officals-coca-cola-plant-water-mehdiganj)

everywhere!

------
aaron695
I get this is a mindless junk article, but this statement is ridiculous right?

"Surely the earthquake damaged underground caves in the aquifer, which could
impact aquifer recharge in the future,"

You could give them the benefit of the doubt on a translation error, but no
mainstream paper would be this sloppy.

------
__warlord__
Another big issue is that Coca-Cola is an addiction in Mexico, The government
knows it, Coca-Cola Inc. knows it but it seems that our people don't seem to
care, taxes had been imposed on sugar watered beverages but nothing change,
actually, the consumption went up (I don't have the numbers right now), so, as
long as we still have this idea that this kind of beverages are "ok" we are
still empowering companies like this to do as they please with this resources.

I'm not very fond of the Mexican government, and believe me, if companies
approach them they will be willing to sell even the air we breathe. But we
have to put our part to stop empowering this multi-nationals to do as they
please.

------
mtgx
While Coca-Cola deserves a great deal of blame for this (obviously), surely
the bigger part of the blame should go to the local government for _allowing
them_ to do this? Isn't the people, and therefore the government, sovereign?
Or are there some laws/constitutional issues that would prevent the government
from restricting Coca-Cola in taking all the water?

By the way, this is why corporate-written and corrupt treaties such as TPP and
TTIP can be so dangerous if they end-up preventing national governments from
putting such restrictions against multi-national companies.

Another thought: expect more of this to happen when corporations start being
run by AI - a lot more. A corporation is already an inhuman entity that's
highly biased towards "increasing profits at all costs" without regard for
much else. An AI-run corporation would be a supercharged version of that.

People who also "can't wait to be governed by their AI overlords" should take
the same thing into consideration.

~~~
vertex-four
The issue is that Coca-Cola et al, in practice, have enough power that they
can cause problems for Governments which don't allow them to do what they
want. Concentration of money is nearly precisely equivalent to concentration
of power. And then you have international trade agreements and Governments
willing to back this status quo up.

------
tryingagainbro
Can an engineer chime in? I'm sure Coca Cola doesn't want this bad publicity
and I assume that if a few dozen villagers gather at the plant every day it
will get worst for them.

My question, is there any way to estimate the ground water? Why did the build
there, or is the rate of extraction is really high?

edit: apparently over there they get some 3000mm a year rain!!

------
Animats
Could be worse. It's not like a golf course resort is sucking up the water
supply. Most of the water that goes into a Coke plant comes out in the
product.

------
richardknop
Isn't this also related to climate change? Given the rate climate is getting
warmer, it has been long predicted there will be shortages of drinking water
and wells will be drying up as well as vast green areas of today will turn
into desserts. Water will be cause of military conflicts in the future I
believe. It will be more valuable than oil.

------
rbanffy
At least it has electrolytes.

------
warmfuzzykitten
No problem. They can water their plants with Gatorade.

------
efa
Resist the Right-Wing Machine!!

------
Dowwie
I drink your milk shake.

------
_h_o_d_
Why did somebody just change the title here on HN from the original 'Coca-Cola
Sucks Wells Dry in Chiapas, Forcing Residents to Buy Water'?

~~~
mnx
HN has a rule against sensationalised headlines.

------
epx
Do you really want to live in a world without Coca-Cola? -- WW

------
pdog
Water is a scarce resource.

A market system is the objectively the best mechanism for allocating scarce
resources.

(Of course, if you object to a pure market system, the government can regulate
the market and subsidize residential tap water.)

Why isn't water priced accordingly?

~~~
conanbatt
> Water is a scarce resource.

Water is not scarce! We got plenty. The model of water being a limited
resource we have to save does not represent an economic reality.

We have an entire planet worth of water and we are not shooting it out to
space. We know how to use it, how to clean it, etc. We will never run out of
water. We might run out of 'free' water, but thats the whole point of using a
resource, consuming it.

~~~
pdog
If water isn't scarce, why complain that Coca-Cola is using so much?

~~~
conanbatt
I wonder what could someone extract from coca-cola for their own self
interest.

------
CoreXtreme
This is exactly, why I use functional programming language and prefer Pespsi
even tho it tastes bit worse.

The facadian distance between Pespsi and Cocola water molecules is about 10nm
which makes Pepsi efficient in terms of water requirements.

If only Coke fans got that right, maybe one day...

