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.
Point Pleasant Beach is a Borough in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the borough population was 5,314. Point Pleasant Beach was incorporated as a borough by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on May 18, 1886, from portions of Brick Township, subject to the results of a referendum passed the previous day. Point Pleasant Beach is a Jersey Shore community situated on the Barnegat Peninsula, a long, narrow barrier peninsula that divides the Barnegat Bay from the Atlantic Ocean. The Point Pleasant Beach boardwalk is approximately one mile long, spanning the coastline from the Manasquan Inlet at the north to New Jersey Avenue in the south. The central third of the boardwalk is jam-packed with amusement rides, arcades, pizza joints, ice cream parlors, games-of-chance and miniature golf courses. Point Pleasant Beach is also the northern terminus of the East Coast's Intracoastal Waterway. It was ranked the eighth best beach in New Jersey in the 2008 Top 10 Beaches Contest sponsored by the New Jersey Marine Sciences Consortium.