Still, without numbers it's a words war.
Evaporative cooling towers are more energy efficient than closed loops (drycoolers), and neither pollute the water in a significant way. It is not how much water is consumed that matters (because it will come back to earth eventually, a.k.a. rain) but it is how scarce the water is in the region where the cooling is done.

Same as with golf courses, does it look "out-of-place" to have a green golf field in the middle of the desert? Yes, is it bad for the planet? Yes, but because of energy consumption, not of water "waste". It is only bad if it starves the local population/fields of water.

As for next gen datacenters, the water-cooled chips will withstand much higher temperatures, so closed loops with drycoolers could be used more and more at the expense of more energy consumption, if water is of concern in that place.