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.
Lost Springs is a town in Converse County, Wyoming, United States. As of the 2000 census, one person lived there. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town is one of only four places in the United States to have a population of 1 person. The others are Hibberts Gore, Maine, Erving's Location, New Hampshire, and New Amsterdam, Indiana. However, Lost Springs mayor Leda Price claims the census was inaccurate, and that Lost Springs had four residents in 2000. The population reached five by 2002. By 2009, the population had dropped back to three.