'This is what I was born for': the drought-ridden Colombian town that took on Coca-Cola Femsa - and won

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jun/12/colombian-town-coca-cola-la-calera-water-rationing-springs-drinks-giant-subsidiary

‘This is what I was born for’: the drought-ridden Colombian town that took on Coca-Cola Femsa – and won

While La Calera faced severe water rationing, local springs were being drained by the drinks giant’s franchise. So the residents fought back

Supported by
Open Society Foundations

Alfie Pannell in La Calera, Colombia
Fri 12 Jun 2026 07.30 EDT

hen a severe drought struck La Calera near Bogotá, many of its residents lost their water for drinking, cooking and farming and faced up to 15 days of strict water rationing each month. Yet the area is home to Chingaza reservoir, which supplies about 70% of the drinking water for Colombia’s capital.

As the drought stretched from April 2024 to April last year, people began to look more closely at how their water was being managed.

“With rationing, people started to reflect a bit about where the water was coming from: ‘Why is there no water in my house, if we always had it on tap?’” says Javier Cifuentes, a local councillor and campaigner for water rights in La Calera.

Attention soon turned to Indega, a subsidiary of Coca-Cola Femsa – the world’s largest Coca-Cola bottler – which was still filling thousands of water bottles a day to sell under the popular Agua Manantial spring water brand, which is sold across Colombia.

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