How come the city can waste water?

Recently the drought that affected Charlotte, North Carolina and much of the Southeast has gotten a lot less severe than it was in 2006 and 2007 when Mecklenburg County (and counties surrounding it) enacted mandatory water restrictions on all it's residents that use the city-county water supply.

We were told by Mayor Pat McCrory that "brown yards are beautiful too" and many did their civic duty and cut back on water usage, in fact Charlotteans did such a good job that the city had to raise prices because people weren't buying enough water. People stopped washing cars, some even chose to wash their hair only three times a week, take a shower every other day, wash clothes less often, ect. For his part, the Mayor saved water at home, too.

But CMUD (Said "See-mud"), the public, tax funded utility that controls the Charlotte-Mecklenburg water supply doesn't always practice what it preaches:



That's been going on for over a week, gallons and gallons of water.

At the moment they finally appear to be fixing it, but it took them long enough.