From that same article it mentions that 20% of the water 'used' was involved in packaging. Bottled water has the same packaging and will involve the same transportation issues, etc. The only difference is going to be in the water used to create the sweetener (sugar, corn, etc) and in those cases the water is 1) not lost, and 2) often coming from sources like rainfall over a vast area that would otherwise be unavailable to us.