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.
New Hill is an unincorporated community located in southwestern Wake County, North Carolina, at the crossroads of old U.S. 1(State Road 1011, running northeast-southwest), New Hill-Olive Chapel Road (running north) and New Hill-Holleman Road (running south). New Hill is located along the original alignment of the New Hope Valley Railway between Durham and Bonsal. The community is near the southern terminus of the American Tobacco Trail, as well as Progress Energy's Shearon Harris nuclear power plant and the associated Harris Lake recreation center. A regional wastewater reclamation project is currently planned for the area. The project is opposed by local residents who believe that placing the facility in the middle of their community will adversely impact their way of life.