And depending on the local geology, it will take anywhere between months and thousands of years for that ex-Coke to get to a water body, evaporate, precipitate,

And depending on the local geology, it will take anywhere between months and thousands of years for that ex-Coke to get to a water body, evaporate, precipitate, and infiltrate back into the aquifer. It's very easy for the rate of extraction of a particular aquifer to exceed the rate of replenishment. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_conductivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_conductivity water moves through porous material at rates varying from 300 m/day (mixture of gravel and sand) to 3 mm/day (clay, sandstone). EDIT: arithmetic.