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.
Hamburg was a small town in St. Charles County, Missouri, United States. The town was evacuated in 1940-1941 as the area was taken over by the U.S. Department of the Army for the Weldon Spring Ordnance Works, which manufactured trinitrotoluene (TNT) and dinitrotoluene (DNT) and later processed uranium.