Legislative finding and purpose

The legislature finds that power generating plants and transmission lines for electricity and fuels, community antenna television towers and telecommunication towers have had a significant impact on the environment and ecology of the state of Connecticut; and that continued operation and development of such power plants, lines and towers, if not properly planned and controlled, could adversely affect the quality of the environment and the ecological, scenic, historic and recreational values of the state. The purposes of this chapter are: To provide for the balancing of the need for adequate and reliable public utility services at the lowest reasonable cost to consumers with the need to protect the environment and ecology of the state and to minimize damage to scenic, historic, and recreational values; to provide environmental quality standards and criteria for the location, design, construction and operation of facilities for the furnishing of public utility services at least as stringent as the federal environmental quality standards and criteria, and technically sufficient to assure the welfare and protection of the people of the state; to encourage research to develop new and improved methods of generating, storing and transmitting electricity and fuel and of transmitting and receiving television and telecommunications with minimal damage to the environment and other values described above; to promote energy security; to promote the sharing of towers for fair consideration wherever technically, legally, environmentally and economically feasible to avoid the unnecessary proliferation of towers in the state particularly where installation of such towers would adversely impact class I and II watershed lands, and aquifers; to require annual forecasts of the demand for electric power, together with identification and advance planning of the facilities needed to supply that demand and to facilitate local, regional, state-wide and interstate planning to implement the foregoing purposes.