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.
Floodwood is a city in St. Louis County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 503 at the 2000 census. Originally a logging community, it was a dairy community for most of it history, but could now be best described as a bedroom community, since most of its working population finds employ in nearby Duluth, Grand Rapids, Hibbing and Cloquet. The city describes itself as "The Catfish Capital of the World", a nickname it gave to itself following the introduction of the community's annual Catfish Days festival. U.S. Highway 2 and State Highway 73 are two of the main arterial routes in the city.