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.
Ararat is an unincorporated community in Patrick County, Virginia, United States, south of the Blue Ridge Parkway and north of Mount Airy, North Carolina. Ararat is located near the Virginia/North Carolina state line about five miles north of Mount Airy, North Carolina and about 25 miles west of Stuart, Virginia. The community's name comes from the Ararat River which flows through the area. The River takes its name from the Saura Indian name for nearby Pilot Mountain in Surry County, North Carolina. The large Monadnock mountain was thought to resemble a bullfrog and the Indians named it after the sound they thought it made "Ratratrat". Early white settlers thought what they were saying sounded like "Ararat," the mountain which, according to the Bible, was the landing point of Noah's Ark. Blue Ridge Elementary School is located in the community. Several famous people were born in the community, such as the Reverend Bob Childress; "The Man Who Moved A Mountain," Orlean Puckett; the famous midwife whose cabin is along the parkway; and James Ewell Brown "Jeb" Stuart, the Major General of Cavalry for Robert E. Lee during the American Civil War. The J.E.B. Stuart Birthplace, Laurel Hill, is a preserved private park in the community that is open for self-guided tours daily and holds a Civil War encampment the first full weekend of October each year.