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.
Scotland, in St. Mary's County, Maryland, is a small town near the southernmost end of the state, on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. There is a boys' summer camp, operated by a police department. Nearby are the tiny town of Ridge and Point Lookout beach, the former site of a Civil War prison camp.