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.
Reedville is an unincorporated town in Northumberland County in the Northern Neck region of the U.S. state of Virginia. It is located at the eastern terminus of U.S. Route 360 (the Northumberland Highway) east of Heathsville at the head of Cockrell's Creek on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Reedville is home to the fishing industry for Atlantic menhaden, a small oily fish found in great abundance in Mid-Atlantic coastal waters. By some accounts, it is second only to Dutch Harbor, Alaska for the annual quantity of fish brought to port in the United States. A popular place to begin fishing charters and trips to Tangier Island in the Bay, Reedville is a destination itself, steeped in the history of the menhaden fishing industry, with its Millionaire's Row of Victorian-era mansions and several watercraft of the Fishermen's Museum each listed on the National Register of Historic Places.