The environmental abuses are pretty slim compared to hundreds of other human activities. People only got excited because they saw their bills go up in some cases. Golf courses for example use far more water. While estimates are all over the place they range from 2x to 5x to 40x, but in any case, fewer people are bitching.

Meanwhile, we're draining the Colorado river for alfalfa (24% of yearly water use) and export shitloads of it.