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.
Johnsonburg is a borough in Elk County, Pennsylvania, 124 miles (199 km) northeast of Pittsburgh and 115 miles (185 km) south of Buffalo, New York, in a productive farming and lumbering region. Paper mills were once common here, and Domtar still maintains a paper mill there today. In 1910, 4,334 people lived here. The population was 3,003 at the 2000 census. It was founded in 1810 and incorporated in 1891.