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.
Pellston is a village in Emmet County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 771 at the 2000 census. The village is the home of Pellston Regional Airport. Its motto is "Icebox of the Nation"; Pellston recorded the state of Michigan's record low temperature, a frigid -53°F. in 1933, and every winter is regularly called out in national weather reports, along with towns like Big Piney, Wyoming, Fraser, Colorado and International Falls, Minnesota, as one of the coldest spots in the nation. The village is on the boundary between Maple River Township and McKinley Township on United States Highway 31. Interstate 75 is about 10 miles (16.1 km) east of Pellston. Mackinaw City and the Mackinac Bridge is approximately 18 miles (29 km) north and Petoskey is about 20 miles (32.2 km) southwest of the village. The University of Michigan Biological Station is on nearby Douglas Lake.