CHARLOTTE - Dale Johnson first noticed them in August -- big tanker trucks, stopping to fill up at a fire hydrant in his Providence Crossing neighborhood on N.C. 16, just before the Union County line.

Curious, Johnson followed a few.

They rolled into Union County. A couple stopped at developments and began using Mecklenburg water to clean streets or control dust.

"Here we were getting more restrictive in our water usage, and they were taking Mecklenburg water and using it in Union," Johnson said.

That was just the start of his confusion, dramatizing the inconsistencies of water restrictions from county to county.

Last month, Union County officials declared water restrictions that included banning trucks from using Union water to clean streets or control dust.

But Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utilities allowed street-cleaning companies to pay a fee to draw water from hydrants -- and take it anywhere they wanted. On Thursday, moved by complaints from residents, CMU officials decided to end the practice starting Monday, said Maeneen Klein, the utility's water conservation manager.

"It just seems odd that we residents have to watch every drop, every gallon, and yet we allowed tankers to take Mecklenburg water into Union to be used in ways that Union prohibits its water being used for," Johnson said.

Restrictions vary

During the 2002 drought, state legislators debated establishing the same restrictions statewide for the four drought stages.

The talks ended "when it started raining," said Bill Holman, a former N.C. environment secretary and a visiting scholar and water expert at Duke University.

"It needs to be debated again, so that if you're in the Charlotte metro area, stage 1 means the same thing in Monroe as it does in Charlotte," Holman said.

As the drought deepened, Union County imposed stage 3 restrictions, outlawing the use of its water to clean public streets, buildings and sidewalks, said Scott Huneycutt, assistant public works director. Union water also can't be used to control dust or fill swimming pools.

But tanker trucks could do all those activities if water came from ponds, rivers or another water system, Huneycutt said.

That is when Johnson began noticing trucks lining up at his neighborhood hydrant and rolling back into Union.

Currently, 215 companies buy permits for 581 trucks, said CMU spokeswoman Erin Culbert. In September, 21.3 million gallons, less than 1 percent of all water consumed, were drawn by tanker trucks from Mecklenburg hydrants, she said.

After hearing from residents, CMU officials began discussing weeks ago banning the use of Mecklenburg water outside its service area.

They decided Thursday to make the change, instead of waiting until stage 4 restrictions were possibly imposed in six to 10 weeks, she said.

Some pain ahead

One of the tankers Johnson followed was owned by Charlotte-based Red Clay Industries, which builds residential and commercial roads in seven Carolinas counties.

The company has projects in Union County near the Mecklenburg line, said Jim Smith, its founder and president.

Smith said his trucks use water to compact crushed stone beneath asphalt.

Union still allows its water to be used for road construction, but Smith said the closest hydrants to his projects are in Mecklenburg.

"What would you do if you had a hydrant 12 miles away, or one a half-mile away just over the line?" he said.

Considering businesses complicates conservation strategies, Klein said. CMU first targeted discretionary uses like lawn watering.

Now, as stage 4 restrictions loom, businesses might be hurt.

"That's the hard part," she said. "We are slower to impose restrictions where livelihoods are involved."