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.
Port Leyden is a village in Lewis County, New York, United States. The population was 665 at the 2000 census. The name is derived from the village's early history as a port on the Black River Canal. The Village of Port Leyden is wholly within the Black River Valley and is mostly in the Town of Leyden; however, a portion of the village lies to the east of the Black River in the Town of Lyonsdale. The village is 17 miles south of Lowville (the county seat), 6 miles north of Boonville, and 23 miles west-south-west of Old Forge.