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.
Zumbrota is a city in Goodhue County, Minnesota, United States, along the North Fork of the Zumbro River. The population was 2,789 at the 2000 census. It promotes itself as "the only Zumbrota in the world. " Zumbrota is the home of the Zumbrota Covered Bridge, the last structure of its kind in the state of Minnesota.