I'm unconvinced that what the picture shows is actually an instance of CWT as opposed to a prisoner being restrained and having a torrent of water directed onto him, a much more common practice at Sing Sing ('the bath,' mentioned here and further detailed by Rejali). The use of various water tortures in prisons like Sing Sing and San Quentin is well-documented, and I noticed on Wikipedia a picture of what is claimed to be Chinese Water Torture at Sing Sing in 1860, so I looked into it. I tried to find specific incidents of it being used as a form of punishment, rather than as a way to get information or confessions. So, wide use of the method by the United States seems unlikely. I consulted Darius Rejali's Torture and Democracy in which he states that the use of Chinese Water Torture ended by the 18th century. In practice it wasn't especially useful for acquiring information or confessions compared with other methods, as it was slow and its effectiveness questionable.

restraint, isolation, cold water, sleep deprivation). It seems more like a theoretical way to break someone mentally using common torture elements (i.e. The further I look into it, the less I'm convinced that Chinese Water Torture, defined as dripping water onto the forehead over a long period of time, was used much at all in the last 300 years.

Houdini chinese water torture cell