The Coca-Cola company is making unsubstantiated claims about its relationship to water and has a dismal record of protecting water resources. It neither protects nor preserves water. By placing an advertisement in the Daily Minnesota on March 22, the Coca-Cola company is attempting to manufacture an image of itself that it clearly is not - a responsible steward of water.

The reality of Coca-Cola particularly in India is a far cry from what was printed in the Daily Minnesota. The company has conveniently omitted pertinent data, and the advertisement is designed to deliberately mislead the public.

The Coca-Cola company is guilty of denying thousands of people access to water in India by affecting the quantity of water through its massive water use and the quality of water through pollution. Its operations are affecting the very lifeline of India where over 70% of the population derives a living from agriculture.

Coca-Cola's flaunting of their increased water efficiency in the advertisement fails to provide an accurate picture of the company's relationship with water. According to the company itself, 75% of the freshwater they extract in India is turned into wastewater. Coca-Cola extracts huge amounts of water, in some cases, using up to a million liters of water per day in some facilities in India. Globally, the company extracted 283 billion liters of water in 2004, and turned two-thirds of it into wastewater.

The omission of such relevant numbers when discussing water stewardship is designed to deliberately mislead the public. Coca-Cola's abuse of water is particularly striking in a world where lack of access to clean, drinking water is a reality for over 1.2 billion people.

Coca-Cola's claims in the advertisement of "substantially" returning the water they use to local aquifers in India is also absurd. Just last week, Coca-Cola's top public relations official in India admitted that rainwater harvesting in their Mehdiganj facility "harvested" only 8% of their annual water use. 8% is not "substantial" by any measure, and is indicative, once again, of the deliberate attempt by the company to mislead.

Rainwater harvesting is not, as Coca-Cola may suggest, an altruistic measure on their part. It is the result of the formidable community campaigns all across India challenging the company's water abuses that have forced the company to adopt rainwater harvesting. However, rainwater harvesting alone is not enough to meet Coca-Cola's supersized thirst for water.

The Coca-Cola company does not mention in the advertisement that it has been indicted for polluting water and land in India, which has resulted in further hardships for thousands. One of Coca-Cola's largest bottling plants in India has remained shut down for over two years now because the State Pollution Control Board will not allow it to operate-citing the company for gross pollution. Numerous tests conducted by government and independent agencies have confirmed that the water around Coca-Cola's bottling plants have been severely polluted and are unfit for human consumption.

Twenty villages in the vicinity of Coca-Cola's bottling plant in Mehdiganj, in northern India, have embarked upon an indefinite vigil on March 23, demanding that the plant shut down before summer begins, when water shortages are particularly acute.
The misleading advertisement in the Daily Minnesota does nothing to assuage the serious concerns of the thousands of people living near Mehdiganj.