Meeting illuminates new light regulations

Alberto Halpern — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:06:48 +0000

By BENJAMIN WERMUND

FORT DAVIS – Far West Texans are preparing for a “one-of-a-kind” state law aiming to protect the region’s “one-of-a-kind skies.”

At a meeting Monday at Indian Lodge near Fort Davis, about 30 people gathered to learn more about potential changes coming to the area, stemming from a new law requiring counties and communities, any part of which are within 57 miles of McDonald Observatory, to regulate light usage. A dark sky improves the scientific mission at the observatory.

Bill Wren uses a floodlight to demonstrate observatory-friendly lighting angles. (staff photo by BENJAMIN WERMUND)

The law isn’t specific about how to regulate light usage; it just says that they must do so. And as it became clear at the meeting, it’s unclear what, if any, changes will come to the already regulated Jeff Davis, Brewster and Presidio counties.

William ‘Bill’ Wren, a special assistant to the observatory superintendent whose main mission is to educate West Texans on observatory-friendly lighting practices, led the 30-minute meeting that offered suggestions on good lighting and illuminated the eyeball-burning, blinding effects of bad lighting.

Wren showed slide after slide with before and after shots of darkened parking lots and streets, lit first with bad lighting, then with good lighting. He splashed a cone of light from a flood light against the wall to show how much light gets wasted in the sky when a fixture isn’t installed at the suggested 20-degree angle below the horizon. Wren then pointed the floodlight at the small audience.

“You can’t see when you have bright lights in your eyes,” Wren said, summing up the reason for regulations.

Wren gave examples of lighting success stories around the area. Big Bend National Park, he said, cut energy consumption by 98 percent by switching to suggested LED lighting.

“LED is the wave of the future,” Wren said.

The Stripes in Marfa was “lighting up the world” with lights burning 6,700 watts apiece, Wren said. At the observatory’s prompting, the store reduced those to only 1,200 watts, saving money and cutting light pollution.

The new Dollar General store in Marfa also altered its outdoor lights when contacted by city officials.

Counties affected by new law.

The new law doesn’t provide guidelines on how counties should regulate lights, so Wren’s job remains giving meetings like Monday’s. Wren said his main goal now is to get the cities of Presidio, Pecos and Fort Stockton to pass regulations and switch over to observatory-friendly lighting.

But in the end, Jeff Davis, Presidio and Brewster counties already have light regulations. So the law will likely bring little change to the tri-county area. The counties that are going to be affected by the new law — Pecos and Reeves, which don’t currently regulate light usage — are hundreds of miles from the Indian Lodge that hosted the meeting.

Wren said he hoped Monday would kick off a miniature tour of the region, with Pecos and Reeves counties pegged as next stops.

New law aims to keep lights low in Far West Texas

Alberto Halpern — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 16:55:29 +0000

By BENJAMIN WERMUND

FAR WEST TEXAS – At night, McDonald Observatory is one of the darkest places in America.

Far-away cities create domes of light on the horizon — the only interruptions to the continuous blackness, aside from the stars and moon.

It’s like that for a reason. Astronomers need a dark sky to better observe the cosmos.

Pecos and Reeves counties will now be required to regulate light usage.

The dark is well preserved by the counties surrounding the observatory, Jeff Davis, Presidio, Hudspeth, Culberson and Brewster — and a new state law aims to keep it that way.

As civilization continues to expand, a law by State Rep. Pete Gallego would expand light regulations with it, even farther from the observatory, requiring counties within 57 miles to enforce light codes.

“I wanted to put something in statute that made sure that McDonald is protected. I think it’s one of the jewels, not only in West Texas, but for the whole state,” Gallego, said. Gallego authored the light regulation bill this legislative session that the governor signed it into law earlier this month.

Current state law gives counties the authority to regulate lighting if the observatory requests them to do so. After the new law takes effect at the beginning of next year, counties within the 57-mile radius of the observatory — Jeff Davis, Presidio, Brewster, Culberson, Hudspeth, and now Reeves and Pecos — will be required to create and enforce light regulations.

But even some of the counties that already regulate light will have to formalize their regulations a bit.

“In order to be able to fairly, uniformly do this around the county, we’re going to have to step up to some more maturity in our code enforcement,” Presidio County judge Paul Hunt said. “Right now we’re working on trying to imagine how we’ll budget this.”

Hunt said the county is considering sharing some of the code enforcement duties with cities.

“The idea of pitching this as a joint venture for code enforcement is one way we can take some of the sting of the cost out by sharing it and learning to work together a little better,” he said.

Under the new law, the counties have a variety of options for meeting the new regulation requirements. They can create a permit to install certain types of outdoor lighting, establish fees to cover the costs of issuing the permits, prohibit the use of certain types of outdoor lighting, establish requirements for shielding outdoor lights, or regulate the times during which certain outdoor lighting can be used.

Hunt said he was glad to see the law pass with little opposition, especially since it has the potential to set a precedent.

“It’s the first time the municipalities will be required to do something by state law,” he said.

Reeves County Judge Joe Shuster said the county will do its best to live within the new law.

“Unless it’s impossible to live by, then we’ll try to get it changed the next go-round,” Shuster said. He didn’t have any idea what the county’s new regulations might look like. Neither did Pecos County Judge W.J. Bang.

Most communities in the Big Bend area already create little light pollution.

William ‘Bill’ Wren, a special assistant to the observatory superintendent whose main mission is to educate West Texas cities on observatory-friendly lighting practices, said the new law isn’t going to change his job description.

“I’m still going to have to convince cities to follow good lighting practices,” Wren said.

Wren said he’s had great success locally — even the big Stripes sign in Marfa uses LED lighting that stays on the property for the most part. He said the lighting industry is already moving toward lighting that creates less light pollution, so it’s really more about educating about what types of light make for good visibility.

“Low-glare fixtures are what we’re recommending,” Wren said.

The observatory provides free light shields to the public and the utility will install them at a customer’s request, also for free, Wren said.

“There’s just tons of good lighting in the area,” Wren said. “The trouble is we have communities far flung that are much larger. El Paso is the brightest thing in our sky besides the full moon.”

El Paso is 160 miles from the observatory, but Wren said it still looms on the western horizon as a dome of light.

“The atmosphere is scattering light from all over the desert southwest,” Wren said. “The lightness of the background sky is increasing.”

For more info on light pollution and good lighting, visit: mcdonaldobservatory.org/darkskies/

Big Bend Now » Light pollution

Meeting illuminates new light regulations

New law aims to keep lights low in Far West Texas