They aren’t taking the entire option away from the sight seers, just rearranging the options. Note that you can still purchase a water bottle for $1.99 and refill it as much as needed at the free refill stations.
•Grand Canyon souvenir water bottles cost as little as $1.99 and can be filled over and over again with FREE Grand Canyon spring water. When you refill a reusable water bottle, you save money!
As long as they have such an alternative, my initial objection of dehydration is withdrawn. I still see this as part of a larger liberal sustainability concept, as stated in the article. And you still have the issue of water bottles brought in from outside, so you are still going to have litter, and a two-dollar bottle is not going to hold up to repeated use without leaking, so I doubt it will suffer a much different fate than a disposable bottle.