It's not an issue of river water levels. It's an issue of permissible river temperatures. They should rethink the impact of heating a river versus increasing fossil fuel emissions that heat the whole world.
Cooling towers don't recirculate the drawn water back to the river as far as I'm aware. They only draw the water in the basin depletes. Looking at the sources, 2% of it is lost to evaporation, the rest condenses back on the bottom.
