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.
Bridgewater is a town in Windsor County, Vermont, United States. The population was 980 at the 2000 census. Bridgewater contains the hamlets of Bridgewater Village, Bridgewater Corners, West Bridgewater, and Bridgewater Center (formerly called Briggs). Bridgewater was the birthplace of Zadock Thompson, naturalist and identifier of the whale bones found by railroad workers near Charlotte, Vermont.