Public utilities provide electric, gas, water or telephone service to customers in a specified area. Utilities have a duty to provide safe and adequate service on reasonable terms to anyone who lives within the service area on without discriminating between customers. Because most utilities operate in near monopolistic conditions, they can be heavily regulated by local, state, and federal authorities. Generally, the local and state agencies are called Public Service Commissions (PSC) or Public Utility Commissions (PUC). Municipal Utilities and Rural Electric Cooperatives may be unregulated though.
Desert Center, in Riverside County, California, is an unincorporated town (pop. 150) located in the Colorado Desert of Southern California, mid way between the cities of Indio and Blythe at the junction of Interstate 10 and State Route 177 (Desert Center-Rice Road). In the vicinity of Desert Center are the Chuckwalla Mountains, Corn Springs, Eagle Mountain (a former Kaiser iron mine) and Chiriaco Summit. The ZIP Code is 92239, and the community is inside area code 760.