Rebecca Manzi Coca-Cola extracts over 300,000 gallons of water daily from the Huitepec volcano basin, while the town of San Cristóbal de las Casas grapples with a severe water crisis.
In San Cristóbal de las Casas, it is impossible not to notice Coca-Cola; this beautiful highland city in Chiapas, Mexico is dotted by the red-and-white logo of this beverage giant. However, there is a deeper controversy regarding access to water, a highly contentious issue for local people.
Coca-Cola’s bottling plant and its impact
It hosts a Femsa bottling plant-the multinational that bottles Coca-Cola throughout much of Latin America-and it extracts over 300,000 gallons of water daily from the Huitepec volcano basin.
This high intake of water is worsened in an extreme water crisis when Chiapas, one of the Mexican states most bountiful with water, suffers precisely from that element. And there is the oddity that even in some of the region’s rural communities running water does not flow.
Weeks without water
Climate change and the increasing water needs of transnational corporations are driving the problem upward. In 2050, 20 out of Mexico’s 32 states will have water shortages. Cities such as Mexico City may face “day zero”, when tap water runs out completely.
In San Cristobal, cuts in water supplies are a norm. People hardly get water supplied for weeks in a row, thereby having to take long distances around the city looking for what would suffice their survival needs. For instance, even in city center, one may get to receive water supplied for only two hours every two days.
The bad quality of tap water, generally polluted, made the inhabitants buy bottled water and soft drinks. A dependency relation was thus created, leading to an incredible growth of consumption of Coca-Cola in Chiapas: each inhabitant consumes nearly 180 gallons per person per year, the highest rates in the world.
Corporate water rights versus community needs
Despite widespread criticism, Coca-Cola and other multinational corporations continue to siphon off enormous amounts of water. Water concessions given to such companies are often criticized for being too lenient, with permit fees significantly lower than the profits that accrue. Meanwhile, local communities like San Cristóbal fight for the right to water-an essential resource increasingly diminished in favor of corporate profits.
