While one might make a personal decision not to consume Coke or Pepsi products, there have to be strong and clear reasons for a group to suggest public boycott of these products.

Such reasons exist and they make the demand for such a boycott necessary for any society that believes in humanity and rights of humans � rights of humans to have access to potable drinking water as well as water for basic household needs.

Kerala receives an average of 3800mm rainfall every year � among the best rainfall numbers in the country. According to reports in the Hindu, the last dry spells were in 1983, 1985, 1986 and 1987 � the last two being especially severe (compared to the high annual rainfall it usually receives). Despite those bad years, farmers in the area were able to continue farming though it had affected as much as 60% of the cropped area in 87. The last three years have seen about 2000mm rainfall every year � about twice the precipitation numbers in Bengal. Yet, today, farmers in Pallakad do not have enough water to farm � the fields are parched.

In 2003, Pallakad received about 45% of its average rainfall (as per Coca Cola�s website). Yet, in Dec 2003, the High Court of Kerala had upheld the charge by the Perumatty village council that Coke was over exploiting water from the area. The high court passed a law that in accordance with a Supreme Court ruling that water belonged to the people and the government�s role was that of a trustee to ensure that protected water and people�s access to water, it has asked Coke to stop overdrawing water from the area. Coke could draw the amount of water that a farmer owning 34 acres of land would draw on average.

The water levels had fallen so low that the state government asked Coke to stop withdrawing water from its wells till the monsoons came in June 2004 and there was a chance for the water table to be recharged. This was the same state government that had stayed the Perumatty village council decree canceling Coke�s rights on the water of that area and had allowed the company to continue to function.

It is interesting to note that even though June 2004 has come and gone, the Coke plant in Palakkad has not started withdrawing water from that area, according to Dr. Sandeep Pandey. This is not owing to the kind-heartedness or environmental consciousness of the company but simply owing to the fact that there is no water to be drawn.

In the meanwhile, another campaign has begun against the Coca Cola plants in Ballia and Mehdiganj, in Uttar Pradesh. Villagers claim that water levels in the vicinity of the bottling plant in the Gangetic basin (this area is within 50 KM of the Ganga) have fallen between 25 and 50 feet. Villagers have had to get deeper bore wells. Villagers who were peacefully protesting the activities of Coca Cola have been beaten up by the police.

The website of Coca Cola India continues to present false information.
It says that while there are 6 bore wells in the factory site of Coca Cola, only 3 are in operation at any time and they withdraw 0.5 million liters of water per day. This is in contradiction to the allegation presented by the Perumatty village council in court saying that the bottling plant in Pallakad withdrew 400000 gallons (much more than 1 million liters) of water every day. The Kerala State Pollution Control Board puts that number at 1.5 million lites per day while the India Resource Center report says the number is 3.5 million liters per day. We find no statement within the court proceeds where Coke has opposed this number.

The Coke PR team contends that the soft drink industry makes for only 0.002% of the total water usage in the country. It does not understand that questions of sustainability are tied to the process of use as much as in the quantity of use. In India, irrigation makes for 70-80% of water use. For most part, this taps into rainfall and subsurface water. Instances where intensive water usage required tapping into non-renewable aquifers or where it has resulted in the water table becoming saline, drying up or becoming contaminated, these practices need to be stopped. Most importantly, though, most agriculturalists are tied to the land. They cannot exploit the water table, dry it up, make profits and then move.

The same rule holds for other local industries � leather, metal working, ceramics, etc. These industries are decentralized and owned by small local operators who have traditionally worked in this sector. They cannot get up and move. Even there, the high courts and the supreme court has come down heavily on pollution and water usage charges against these industries, primarily owing to charges by environmental groups.

However, Coke and Pepsi refuse to play by these rules. They go into a region and withdraw water using deep bore wells from the low lying aquifers that are much more difficult to recharge. In certain areas like the Deccan and in Rajasthan, these aquifers are impermeable layers that have water trapped in them from millions of years ago. They cannot be recharged even in centuries. It is from such aquifers that Coke and Pepsi withdraw millions of liters of water every year.

They refuse to play by the rules and given their size and economic clout, have continued to influence and bully governments around the world. They have paid off village councils with cell phones and amenities. They have influenced the media to present biased reports. A South African channel refused to mention Coke while carrying the concerns around depleting ground water. They have threatened the World Health Organization over its reports about the unhealthy beverages they sell. In fact, Pepsico has been tied to the coup in Chile that brought Pinochet to power in recently released papers by the US Government.

Coca Cola claims to have started efforts on water conservation and water harvesting. It points to three ponds in the Pallakad plant that it claims can hold up to 27 million liters of water. In truth, the ponds will only fill up to their capacity for 2 months during the monsoons. It is interesting to note that its water harvesting efforts were not able to replenish the water of the area and Coke itself cannot find water to withdraw in that area.

The Coca Cola PR team is probably not aware of the science of water harvesting. Significant amount of water is lost to evaporation. Water harvesting through creation of large ponds in fact causes large water losses through evaporation. It only partially charges the ground water.

While it continues to withdraw over 1 million liters of water every day (0.5 million by its own account), and over 400 million liters of water annually (182 million by its own account), ponds that can store up to 27 million liters (more than half of which evaporate) is a measly attempt that is engineered for publicity rather than for true water recharge. Moreover, while coke draws its water from deep wells, its water harvesting efforts only replenish sub-surface water tables.

A fact that Coke has continued to ignore is the change in the quality of water in these areas. Independent reports have shown that water left in a few open wells in the neighborhood of the plant contain high amounts of chlorides and total dissolved solids. Corpwatch reports that:

The chloride content in the water was 540 mg/l in the samples collected by Jananeethi in July 2002, against the desirable standard of 250 mg/l for drinking water. Another study by the Integrated Rural Technology Center (IRTC), Palakkad, found 519.4 mg/l and 489 mg/l of chlorides in water samples drawn on 29 June 2002 from a dug well and a drilled well near Hindustan Coca-Cola unit. The District Medical Officer's study detected much higher values for chlorides (770 mg/l, 910 mg/l and 860 mg/l) in the three wells that belonged to Pozhanthal, Subramanian and Muthuswamy living near the Coca-Cola factory.
Similarly, the amount of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) have been observed to be high in all the water samples analyzed by these agencies: 551.6 mg/l (Jananeethi); 1100 and 1254 mg/l (IRTC); 1318, 1512, 1434 mg/l (DMO) against a desirable limit of 500 mg/l.The studies also indicate that the hardness (as calcium carbonate) in the water is excessively high: 1120 mg/l (Jananeethi); 1110 and 1240 (IRTC); 1130, 1060,1190 mg/l (DMO) against a desirable limit of 300 mg/l.

In fact, the Jananeethi study concluded that "the water of the wells of this area is polluted and unfit for domestic use." The Ground Water Department report says that at the time of the construction of this factory, the department was not consulted. In fact, though documents show that Coca Cola conducted an Environment Impact Assessment and public hearing as per the laws of India, no civic society or community group can recall reviewing such a report.

Both Coke and Pepsi plants in Kerala have been withdrawing water free of charge. In other parts of the country, these plants pay between 4 paise a liter to 20 paise a liter. Often these are from areas � such as in Andhra Pradesh � where villagers have a muddy slurry to call water. The government of India or the state government has often set up plants to pretreat this water for Coke or Pepsi. The noted journalist P. Sainath has pointed out that no where in India can a citizen of that country but water that inexpensively.

Toxic chemicals have also been found in the solid waste generated at Coca Cola units. The Supreme Court committee had mentioned in its report that Hindustan Coca Cola unit at Plachimada, near Palakkad was unable to convince it about the source of the toxic heavy metals found in the sludge from the factory. A team of researchers from BBC found toxic heavy metals in the sludge too. In Mehdiganj, villagers claim that the Coca Cola unit has been disposing off the sludge in the village.

In addition, pesticides and fertilizers have been found in the beverages being sold by Pepsi and Coke. The Rajasthan High Court passed a judgment saying that the company must list these as contents in its containers. While both companies have argued that these chemicals come from the ground water, it is important to note that in Europe and North America where the ground water contains significant amount of pesticides and fertilizers, these companies find it necessary to pre-treat the water so that humans consuming the beverage are not affected. Why do they use different standards in the third world?

Coke claims that the campaign against the company is led not by concerns for the environment but by anti-globalization motives. Perhaps the managers of Coke do not understand that the leaders of the campaign are demanding that the access to clean drinking water of locals and communities not be put at risk (as is being done by Coke practices) so that Coca Cola Company in Atlanta may make a killing. What they term it is theirs to choose as long as they respect the needs and demands of the local communities and populations.

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