My understanding is that water used in data centers is recirculated, much like all water is. What's the alternative? Does the data center somehow destroy water through a chemical reaction such that is ceases to be water? Or pollutes and releases the water and makes it unusable and incapable of evaporating and being recirculated? Am I missing something?

From the source:

> The water’s going back into the water cycle anyway, so is water usage a big deal? Yes. The phrase to research here is “freshwater scarcity” — cleaning water takes time and energy, the water cycle doesn’t reliably distribute water evenly, water usage can pull water out faster than the cycle can return it, and so on.

If this is true, then it's an engineering problem. Cleaning water takes time and energy, we should improve that and the energy required is already priced. There's more demand for infrastructure and it should be built out.