> Fresh water used for industrial processes generally makes its way to the oceans. We have essentially no way to deliberately replenish our ground water sources and the natural process is extremely slow.
Then industrial processes shouldn't use groundwater. It doesn't sound like a good idea to site them where there isn't abundant surface water.
Paper mills might largely draw from rivers (I honestly don't know), but that doesn't fully alleviate the impact. Industrial processes pulling water impact downstream users, by reducing the amount of water (whatever percentage is not returned) and reducing the quality of the water that remains if they are dumping the used water back into the river.
But yes, if they use surface water, it considerably reduces the impact vs groundwater.
Then industrial processes shouldn't use groundwater. It doesn't sound like a good idea to site them where there isn't abundant surface water.