What had got up the noses of the town's residents wasn't just the environmental waste represented by bottled still water, it was also that a company called Norlex Holdings planned to pump spring water from a site very close to the centre of town.

The company would get the water dirt cheap and truck it to Sydney for bottling. And the good folk in Bundanoon could see no benefit in the deal for them.

In no time there was a spirited campaign to install free bubble taps and ban the sale of still bottled water. That ban won unanimous support from townsfolk and will come into effect later this year.

All this has received plenty of press and TV coverage as reporters conjured up images of a David and Goiliath campaign.

But no-one in the media questioned the value of the water; no-one has asked why beverage companies can disturb ancient aquifers for something that is available from a tap.

According to Bundanoon resident Harvey Grennan, who is part of the Don't Bore Bundanoon campaign, Norlex wants to pump 50 megalitres a year from the site. He told us that this water would virtually cost the company nothing, merely the nominal licence fee of a few hundred dollars.

And here's where we have a problem. Why is it that irrigators pay anything up to $2000 a megalitre for non-potable water while beverage companies pay almost nothing for pristine spring water?

Sydney Water Corp says it currently costs them $560 a megalitre for water. This is the cost of production set by Sydney Water, and includes infrastructure, wages and so on. It's not what it sells the water for.

Still, a value has been put on the water.

But just north of Sydney at Mangrove Mountain, Coca-Cola has recently expanded its pumping from an aquifer shared by horticulturists, who use it for irrigation.

Those farmers who are lucky enough to get a licence to extract water from the aquifer pay at least $2000 a megalitre for their water right and anything from $15,000 to $20,000 to have a bore drilled.

Coca-Cola Amatil, on the other hand, pays three cents a megalitre! That was the figure cited on the ABC's 7.30 Report in 2005 and we've seen nothing since to disprove it.

That's 0.0000003 cents a litre for pure, fresh spring water that's already drinking quality and needs no further refinement. You just bottle it and sell it. By contrast, as we all know, milk is far more expensive to produce and refine. And it's a proper food.

However, we went into our local IGA supermarket to price the two -- a litre of Dairy Farmers milk cost $2.38, while a litre of Mount Franklin water cost $2.12. So there's a mere 26 cents between something that's nutritious but requires keeping and milking cows (with all its associated costs) and something that comes virtually for nothing and has no inherent goodness.

Look, CCA isn't doing anything illegal here. The supermarket giants are perhaps more responsible. And the NSW State Government could have said No to CCA drilling. Instead it recently lifted its annual quota from 25 to 66 megalitres, despite the concerns of Somersby residents and farmers.

It seems the latter have been hung out to dry yet again.

You can bet that the bottled water debate will rage for a few years yet. And there are good reasons for it to do so. Australians spend about $550 million annually on bottled water, and consumption is increasing.

The problem is that millions of gallons of crude oil are consumed in making the plastic bottles to contain it, then only a third are recycled. The oceans are awash with empty plastic bottles killing sea life and creating an unsightly mess.