August 2024: Checking the Box!

Host Bill McGeeney is joined by Betty Buckley who made this great film, the Stars at Night and by Leo Smith, who is now starting up a new Coalition to Reduce Light Pollution!

See Full Show Notes, Lighting Tips and more at LightPollutionNews.com. Like this episode, share it with a friend!

Bill's Picks:

• Will a former landfill become PA's next stargazing mecca?, Tanisha Thomas, Spotlight PA.
  
  
• Astronomy tourism business ready to fight Hydrostor's billion-dollar Broken Hill renewable energy project, Grace Atta, Oliver Brown and Andrew Schmidt, Australian Broadcasting Network.
  
  
• Where can I place outdoor lights? The laws you need to know to avoid 'light trespass', Alex David, Homes and Gardens.
  
  
• Important garden light rules that should not be ignored but are often overlooked, Jayne Thomson, Birmingham Live.
  
  
• Palm Beach Headland Has Been Officially Named Australia's First Urban Dark Sky Place, Maxim Boon, Concrete Playground. 

Chapters

• 10:08 Coalition to Reduce Light Pollution
• 16:40 Drone Shows vs Fireworks
• 26:06 Balancing Astrotourism and Renewable Energy
• 40:45 Proper Use of Landscape Lighting
• 47:59 Landscape Lighting Regulations and Safety

Transcript

Bill McGeeney: 0:06

light pollution news, august 2024 check in the box. Today we talk drones versus fireworks. What's your best recourse when a neighboring business plops on bright lights all night? And what is this? I hear about a new dark sky park near cherry springs this month. I'm'm joined by Betty Buckley, who made this great film, the Stars at Night, and by Leo Smith, who is now starting up a new coalition to reduce light pollution. All this and much more coming to you next, on Light Pollution News. Hello you at home. I'm your host, bill McGeaney, thanking you for joining me for another Light Pollution News.

Bill McGeeney: 0:56

Light Pollution News is a discussion podcast where we look at the news as it pertains to this relatively wide field of light pollution. I hope to not just bring you the news but to spur conversation around the news itself. Before we begin today, I want to make you aware of our mailing list. Each month we put together the mailer for the show. Last month we did two because we had a delay in processing down the we need better resolution part of the show, but this month I hope to get us back on track. That means if you're subscribed to the mailing list, you only get one email per month complete with the details from me on a current show releases, but also and I thought this through a bit I'm going to actually include some of the articles that didn't get discussed on the two shows for this month. So that's one email one month with release links for both shows, including the second half of the month's show before it goes live, and also a list of articles that I didn't include today due to time constraints.

Bill McGeeney: 1:50

You can sign up for our mailing list over at lightpollutionnewscom. It's literally on the first page as you scroll down. Next, as we start today's show, just a reminder you can find all of today's links over at lightpollutionnewscom. I really, really try and make LPN a resource for listeners. We also have a running ecology page under the research tab that lists all of our ecology related articles that are featured in every show since inception. Finally, if you haven't, please remember to subscribe to this show.

Bill McGeeney: 2:20

If you hear something you like, why not recommend it to a friend? We have a very lively Instagram account at lightpollutionnews where you can find reels cut from the show today that you can share with friends, colleagues, public servants you name it and we also have a presence on LinkedIn and Facebook. So please reach out, say hi and of course you can always reach me directly, bill at lightpollutionnewscom, or you can text us in the show notes versus text light pollution news. Now, today I'm excited to be joined by a couple of folks with us today from down in the hill country. Actually out in New Mexico right now, and I assume up in the hills over New Mexico is Betty Buckley. Betty, you put this doc. Your your first documentary right? This is your first documentary out there.

Betty Buckley: 3:06

It's my first documentary to write and direct.

Bill McGeeney: 3:09

Okay, Got the nuance in there. Got the asterisk. It's the documentary the Stars at Night, which is a telling of how stars impact human creativity. Is that right? It is right.

Bill McGeeney: 3:21

I see from the website you're actually going to be able to show this at the Okie Tech Star Party, so if anyone's going down to that, please definitely check out this film. We're going to hold off on going too deep into film discussion because we can do that for the start of the second half of the show, but why don't you tell me because I'm curious what was the impetus? Why did you make this film? You know you have a history of film.

Betty Buckley: 3:51

And why do we get here? So thank you first of all for having me on the show. I teach at Texas State University and, to be closer, I used to live in San Antonio. My husband and I built a house in the Hill Country and it occurred to me that, oh my goodness, here I live, deep in the heart of Texas, like this song says, and I live an hour from San Antonio, an hour from Austin. I've never seen the Milky Way. How have I gotten to be this age? I'm going to go outside and look at the Milky Way. And I went outside and took my app and looked up and was like, well, where is it? And I've made films and television shows.

Betty Buckley: 4:23

I created a show called it's Easy being Green. I thought I knew something about sustainability and I knew nothing about light pollution. And this was right before the beginning of the pandemic and neighbors were saying, oh, I miss my stars at night. So it wasn't just me, my other neighbors. And literally across the hill is another neighboring community that's dark sky certified, but it's across the hill. And so we started our dark sky organization, supported by the International Dark Sky Association, the Hill Country Alliance, and I was, you know, we'd have our committee meeting and I was trying to think, well, what can I do? Maybe, maybe I can.

Betty Buckley: 5:02

You know, I'm a storyteller, I'm a filmmaker, maybe I can make a film. You know, and as I remembered, as you know, actually, a trip in New Mexico where I would look at the stars and I would, and I felt such emotion, I felt such awe and I thought why is it that the stars make us feel that way? You know, I love the science, I've made shows called Easter Island Eclipse, eclipse Across America, so I love that. But where does that come from? And I thought, is it connected somehow, maybe, to storytelling? And so, in reaching out to the first two experts, I found a friend of mine who's an astronomer, tyler Nordgren. He said I said, do you think the stars might be connected to the storytelling? And he goes oh, absolutely it is. And then another expert, and then another expert. So what started to be a short film got way out of control.

Bill McGeeney: 5:56

It's the starsatnightorg and you can go over and check out the trailer over there. We're going to talk a little bit more about that later in the show. I'm very eager to see the whole thing. I love stories that explore the creativity, especially the creative connection that we have in our ecosystem, and that's one of the pieces that helps us, I think, tell the human story a little better.

Betty Buckley: 6:19

Absolutely, and I can speak to that or we can talk about that further in the show.

Bill McGeeney: 6:23

Let's talk about further in the show. Save something for later, all right. Next up is a name that you probably won't need too much introduction If for at least for some of our listeners they probably won't. They won't need too much introduction A member of Dark Skies International Board of Directors, a man who has also served the Roadway Lighting Committee for the Illuminating Engineering Society and someone who has worked really, really hard on helping to develop the Dark Sky and IES joint model lighting ordinance. Mr Leo Smith, thank you so much for coming on the show. You're welcome. So you have a new project. First off, do you eat? You're always doing something in this space. When do you have free time? Do you go? First off? When do you do you eat? Do you like how? You're always doing something in this space, like when. When do you have free time? Do you go on vacations, is it?

Leo Smith: 7:10

Oh, there's plenty of free time.

Bill McGeeney: 7:11

My wife will attest to that. Now, this wasn't solely a retirement gig, was it no?

Leo Smith: 7:18

it started in 2000. And what really was the impetus was that we had a turf farm behind us that was operated by a turf farmer that decided it was time to sell. They moved to retire in North Carolina and we're in Connecticut, so he sold it to a developer and the developer put in 17 beautiful houses. But our concern was glare. We did not want glare coming from these houses, so we worked with the developer to actually install lighting. I was on the board of directors for eight years. Back in the 2000s we had a committee that was a joint task force between the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America and Dark Sky International, which back then was called the International Dark Sky Association. There were seven of us that put together a model outdoor lighting ordinance and that task force went on for about seven years but it finally came to fruition and now we're involved in developing some additional zoning regulations that are more easy to understand, that don't require technical explanations from lighting designers to sort of understand the nuances. It's been an interesting ride.

Bill McGeeney: 8:54

Yeah, and I have a sense we're going to talk about that a little later. I know we have a story on enforcement and I bet that that is the point you're trying to resolve, I guess.

Leo Smith: 9:04

Enforcement is the biggest problem and the issue, like in 2004, in Connecticut, we adopted a state building code regulation that says that all lighting at commercial applications had to be fully shielded, and that preceded LEDs. So when LEDs in 2006, 2007 started hitting the market, they were all supposed to be fully compliant. Fully shielded Didn't happen, and the problem is that your zoning enforcement officer really needs to go out at night in order to inspect and see. They don't do that, they don't want to do that, and so if you come and you complain to them, they take the position that basically, they have already more balls in the air they can handle. And here you're coming to them with something that if they really followed, it could give them dozens and maybe in some cases, even hundreds of violations that they would have to deal with. So they basically put their hands up in the air and turn around and walk away.

Bill McGeeney: 10:08

Well, you have another project going on here, and that is the Coalition to Reduce Light Pollution. Why don't you tell us something about that?

Leo Smith: 10:13

It's an interesting opportunity because what happens is you have people I'll give you one example Audubon is very concerned about bird migration and the adverse effects of light pollution in terms of interfering with bird migration. And then you have a lot of people in the astronomy sector that are totally concerned about dark sky and their ability to see the stars, and others are involved with medical issues and plants and wildlife. But it is all fragmented. So the coalition is there to do two things One is to unify those interests in reducing light pollution and the second part is to present the state government with an opportunity to form a governor's task force on reducing light pollution in the state and in doing that, come up with some recommended practices that state agencies could adopt. Where they can still light, they don't have to cut the light out, but just do it so that it's responsible and even Illuminating.

Leo Smith: 11:24

Engineering Society and Dark Sky came up with five principles for responsible outdoor lighting and if you follow those you still get to light. So it's not like saying you have to operate in the dark, it's just saying do it the responsible way. If you're going to have light, keep it under 3,000 Kelvin for your color temperature, because the higher the Kelvin temperature the Kelvin for your color temperature because the higher the Kelvin temperature, the more light pollution is caused by the blue wavelength light that's represented when you have 4,000, 5,000, 6,000 Kelvin lighting. So doing it the right way, it's just a matter of awareness. Most people don't do it in a bad way, intentionally, they just aren't aware.

Bill McGeeney: 12:06

How big is this the coalition?

Leo Smith: 12:09

right now we have 13 members right now, and the membership is not individuals, these are organizations. So Audubon, Sierra Club, the Conservation Commissions here in Connecticut are all members astronomy groups and it's what we're looking to do is to grow to say about 30 to 60 organizations that would support this, at which time we can then go back to the state government to try and convince them that there's enough political heft here that they should really take a look at light pollution as a serious issue and come up with some remedies.

Bill McGeeney: 12:49

And I guess real quick, how receptive has Connecticut been to date on such issues?

Leo Smith: 12:56

Actually, it's been one of the most progressive states where, starting in 2001, we started out with a statute that required all streetlights to be fully shielded, and there are now four state statutes and one building code amendment that all have to do with reducing light pollution. The most recent statute was one that was passed in 2023 that requires all state-owned properties to turn their lights out from 11 o'clock at night until five in the morning. It started out just applying to bird migration season, but then legislators decided that it sounded like a good idea all year long. So the statute that got passed was a statute that applies all year long instead of just during bird migration season. Oh, that's great news.

Bill McGeeney: 13:51

That's good. Yeah, that's very good news. Since we're talking about the night sky and things that move at night, I want to warm us up with this. So celebrations did you guys go out and see fireworks this year for the 4th? How did you guys celebrate your 4th? Or if you didn't celebrate your 4th, that's fine too.

Betty Buckley: 14:10

You want to take that Leo.

Leo Smith: 14:14

Well, actually we didn't celebrate the 4th per se, but we did see some fireworks, but it was sort of incidental, sort of like an accidental occurrence sort of incidental, sort of like an accidental occurrence.

Betty Buckley: 14:28

So we live, uh, in a part of the, you know, away from cities, and so fireworks are totally illegal and the neighbors and we have a deck where you can see fireworks for a long, long way and for years we've really kind of enjoyed that. But you know, when you worry about uh fires, you know when, when things are dry, there's not enough rain, and then also what it does to your animals. It's just kind of the it's not as exciting anymore. So we just had a very quiet, we celebrated, but it was quiet, we had fun, and I didn't even step out on my deck to look at them, you know, which is weird for me, but yeah, that's how we celebrated.

Bill McGeeney: 15:02

Yeah, we didn't really catch any fireworks, not because we weren't looking, since Independence Day fell in the middle of the week, we ended up traveling, so it just happened to be the same day, as you know, the 4th of July, but so I don't know if you guys heard about this in the news this month. So we've had a shift over in many areas, like in I forget which beach it was in California. We had an article on that a couple of months back. But you had a shift where communities are adopting drone shows. Adopting drone shows because of the things you mentioned, betty, because of the trauma that fireworks impart on animals and the trauma it imparts on certain people. Say you know, if you have PTSD or some kind of traumatic issue.

Bill McGeeney: 15:46

I'm getting this story from Aaron Blakemore of National Geographic. Evidently, when we were up in Vermont, we heard that the town that my wife's family's from, that they're trying to ban fireworks because of some heavy metals in water that they give off, which I never heard of before, and you know Vermont's pretty far to the left for East Coast communities. Evidently, fireworks produce a lot of heavy metal for air and deposit it in the soil and deposits it in the water. So there's a lot going on there with fireworks. There's a lot of issues that people are identifying. I know if you ever have a pet, right, it's always a traumatic well, it's sometimes traumatic time depending on your pet. I know my dog was always very skittish and very traumatized by fireworks, it didn't matter where they were. So the solution as many think a solution seems to be these drone shows, right?

Bill McGeeney: 16:40

So we've spoken about drone shows before, for, like Dollywood, disney World drone shows, they appear to be the big thing. I know when the Eagles clinched a Super Bowl a couple of years back, we had a eagle flying in the sky. It was all a choreographed drone show In honor of the 80th anniversary of D-Day this year the Normandy Beach landings, where the tide actually turned against the Nazis in World War II. A brilliant drone show featuring a World War II fighter jet, paratrooper and a battleship took place in Portsmouth, england. So don't mind, a hideous armada of searchlights around them. Actually, I don't know if you guys saw that video is actually a really impressive show. Yeah, really well done.

Bill McGeeney: 17:25

However, drone shows in the US almost got dealt a fatal blow, and it's not because of any firecracker lobby. No, the US House had contemplated banning the Chinese company DJI, who's a primary manufacturer. They actually own about 58% market share in the US for drones and are widely regarded as the primary, the premier, drone company. The Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act just the other day, presumably based on feedback from various groups, including first responders and small businesses, has removed the DJI ban, thus staving off the action for now. From a light pollution standpoint, though, it's kind of in with the new and out with the old right. Either way, it doesn't change the fact both clutter and night. What are your feelings on drone shows? How do you guys feel about drone shows?

Betty Buckley: 18:12

Well, I love them. I think they're beautiful because they're so coordinated and they can create these incredible shapes. I actually was in France on D-Day, which was very emotional all the way around. I love the drone show that I saw for when the inauguration of the king in the UK King Charles. I think the thing about drones and the DJI I own one it's all about responsible use, so I don't think that they're going to ever get, especially not in my neighborhood.

Betty Buckley: 18:45

Get rid of firecrackers because people like to use them independently, but I'm not a fan of firecrackers. We just came back from the beach and someone in the house next to us thought it would be fun to just pop one off for no reason and totally traumatized my dog. So I would love to see there be a better way to celebrate, you know, with the beauty that you get. I love the look of firecrackers and I mean a firework show on in the distance or on television. It's just the between fires and what you just mentioned. I wasn't aware of the metals and then what it does to animals. I wish there was a better solution. I personally love the drum shows.

Bill McGeeney: 19:25

They are really, really impressive shows. My personal fear is that it opens the door to advertising, but I don't know if that's true. I don't know if that's a realistic fear. Leo, do you have any thoughts on this?

Leo Smith: 19:36

I'm not really that into it, think that these shows are very fleeting compared to the street light that's on all night long, every night, every day, every year, you know. So, at least right now, the amount of light that's coming out of those drones is minimal compared to some of the other problems that have been around a long time.

Bill McGeeney: 20:02

Right, because it's usually about a I don't know maybe a minute, maybe five minutes of the actual dispersion of light up there.

Betty Buckley: 20:09

it's not for, like you said, eight hours right, I mean, I think you know what leo is talking about.

Betty Buckley: 20:16

Just, I mean, the reason I made the film is is that wanted to try there's. They say sometimes you get more with honey than you do with vinegar. You know, I thought, maybe telling a story where people have the idea of like, oh my gosh, I might lose the stars, oh my gosh, my children and my grandchildren might never see the Milky Way. You know that's. And then to understand where it comes from, because so much of it's just not awareness, not and and and awareness, a lack of awareness and knowing how simple and money-saving the solutions can be. So to offer you, for a community that wants you know, on the fourth of july, something that doesn't traumatize animals and create, you know, any kind of pollution in the water. I like the idea of a drone show, but overall, you know, anything that pollutes the night is I'm not in favor of, because it's really horrifying to realize that we might completely lose our ability to see the stars or the future humans will lose it, and my hope is on astrotourism.

Bill McGeeney: 21:33

Well, there's a lot of astrotourism going on right now, although with the drones, I can see this extending beyond. You know, just simple holiday celebrations, right? Sporting events, you name it, you're going to. You know this can really extend outward into many other avenues. So I guess you need a darker sky to see these drones. You've seen them, betty. How dark was the sky when you saw that drone show.

Betty Buckley: 22:00

Oh well, I've only really seen the drone show. So when I was in France, I saw what? Mainly what I saw on television, but I think. And then the other one that I saw was, you know, also on television, but so I really can't, I'm not equipped to answer that question, I don't think. But I just like the idea. That'm not equipped to answer that question, I don't think, but I just like the idea that it's a cleaner solution that doesn't cause another sort of host of problems.

Betty Buckley: 22:25

Yeah, because you know, we were before the show started. We were talking about the heat. Right, I'm here in new mexico because to escape the heat, uh, you all have had a heat wave. So when we have that extreme heat, looking at what's then, you know, fireworks lead to fires. So it's absolutely terrifying when you live in a community where they're not regulated and you're just hoping that people pay attention because they're out there and just, you know, at full force selling them to everybody everywhere. And that's why I'm in favor is to have some sort of you know, solution for the kind of celebration of an event to something that is cleaner.

Bill McGeeney: 23:04

That's good points, good points. Okay, that was a good little warm up there. Since we're on this topic of clean, here's a story that involves recycling some land. As I'm sure you at home are aware, at least here in Pennsylvania we have a unique state park. Leo, you ever been up to Cherry Springs? Yes, we have. Yeah, see, I know everyone in the Northeast seems to. If they're in the know, they stop by. It's like I can't stress how lucky we are to have a park like this.

Bill McGeeney: 23:30

At Cherry Springs State Park you have an observing field complete with electrical hookups to keep you observing well throughout the night. There's no sanctioned use of white light anywhere on the field, which you are locked into until sunrise, and the lighting of all the facilities utilizes red shielding. And it's also a park that's been reconfigured for and by amateur astronomers. It's not casual campers or glampers, it's literally an astronomy park built to facilitate astronomy. So Cherry Springs brings in an estimated 85,000 to 90,000 visitors per year into a relatively quiet part of the northern tier of Pennsylvania called Potter County. Now there's a community an hour west of Potter County that's looking to recreate some of that magic.

Bill McGeeney: 24:18

Officials in nearby Cameron County are eyeing up the new uses for a reclaimed landfill and strip mine site, and the community is weighing whether they want to go down the path and pursue a dark sky designation.

Bill McGeeney: 24:30

To do that, however, they'll need to slow down the glowing trend of light pollution in the overall dual county area pollution in the overall dual county area.

Bill McGeeney: 24:40

It should be noted that the town that is trying to do this Emporium does have a good amount of light pollution in their town itself. For the Pennsylvania wilds, which these two areas are considered part of, starry skies are a key part of the summer economy. However, the wide open beauty of the land has been attracting development, which includes increasing light contamination from new residents' exterior fixtures. And a potential site has more than just challenges from unshielded lighting. Pennsylvania's successful population of the reintroduction of elk is a resource boon for the hunting economy and it's a resource definitely to be protected, bringing in sizable amounts of tourism and hunting revenue. And, of course, since the observing field is on top of a reclaimed landfill, you can't put facilities in that need to go down too far deep into the land, so it'll have to be light on a land. Leo, have you ever worked with communities trying to develop any kind of dark sky parks or anything like that?

Leo Smith: 25:32

I've not worked with any of the communities that have wanted to designate dark sky parks. I was part of the board of directors at the time when we first designated dark sky parks as a potential and set up the parameters for application process, verification, that type of thing, but never actually been part of it.

Bill McGeeney: 25:54

Have you ever heard any good stories and you might not have, well, you may have, I should say have you ever heard any good stories on communities being able to kind of curb and reduce light pollution? A few.

Leo Smith: 26:06

There are some communities that are more advanced, but overall most communities have absolutely no clue on light pollution. It's not that they really became well-informed on the issue and then decided, after gathering all the information, that light pollution was the way they wanted to go. It's not that. It's just they don't understand. They don't really have the information in front of them on how they could do it and do it correctly. A lot of times a community will follow the lead of a sales representative from a lighting company and sometimes it'll come down to pricing you know, this guy offers 10% better pricing than this guy without any consideration of whether there's any substantial difference in terms of light pollution issues when they make that decision. It's just that they don't understand what those ramifications are. When they do understand, they generally will go the right way, because you can accomplish both. You can light what you need to light and at the same time, minimize the light pollution, if you do it right For Emporium, Pennsylvania, I feel and I definitely am making a generalization here for Emporium.

Bill McGeeney: 27:28

I feel like that community probably doesn't think much at all about their exterior lighting and the community is not. It's a pretty depressed area. How do you make the pitch to those people to say, hey, we're going to become a dark sky area and it's going to, it's going to increase. You guys all have to get new fixtures, you need to incur costs to make this a dark sky area.

Leo Smith: 27:52

So sometimes you can do that over time. For example, one of the ways that you can make this work is to say all right, how about depreciation? You as a business, you have all these lights out there. You depreciate those lights when you do your tax returns. It saves you money, but they have a depreciation lifespan might be 13 years, 14 years, somewhere in there. When you have depreciated those lights down to zero and they have no basis value any longer as far as assets are concerned, then go out and change them because you have fully depreciated them, and so that's a compromise. You don't have to do it today and lose all that depreciation. Instead, go ahead and depreciate your lives, but when they're depreciated, change them.

Bill McGeeney: 28:48

So you're saying give them a 10-year span, 10-year run out, However much. I guess LED depreciates probably much slower than a traditional fixture, right?

Leo Smith: 28:58

Yeah, the IRS has depreciation schedules for everything, including LED lighting, and it's anywhere from eight to 13 years.

Bill McGeeney: 29:10

Interesting. When I bought my new car, they told me these lights are going to last forever. Is that not the case?

Leo Smith: 29:15

No, that's not the case as a matter of fact. It's interesting. Leds have there's something called a light loss depreciation factor Over time, what starts out as 100 lumen becomes 95, 90, 80, 70, you know, to the point that you lose a certain amount of light over time for no other reason than it's just built into the system. Oh, interesting.

Bill McGeeney: 29:42

Okay, If you ran it like I say, like 50% the whole time, would that extend to life?

Leo Smith: 29:47

That extends to life. Yes, and from an economic standpoint, if you wanted to have 100 lumens, it would be better to buy a fixture that put out 200 lumens and dim it down to 100. And you'll have a lot longer life with that than you would if you started out with a fixture that was rated at 100 lumen in the beginning but then over time is going to diminish. Interesting.

Bill McGeeney: 30:15

Okay, well, thank you, leo. That's a really good little tidbit there. I want to stay on this theme of communities and some lighting at the very least. Down in Australia a husband and wife team started a small business, outback Astronomy Linda and Travis Neige. They're a community called Broken Hill, new South Wales, australia. The business actually sounds quite neat. Feel free to indulge in a curated night sky or solar tour. They offer upgrades, including hot chocolate, comfortable seating. They have different kind of tiers to their Outback astronomy nights. It's a very touristy and I know, betty, you were looking at having astrotourism. These people are doing astrotourism, they're really in the thick of it, but they are in this town, broken Hill.

Bill McGeeney: 31:04

Broken Hill is known as the Silver City, which has some of the richest lead, silver and zinc deposits in the whole world. Their mining heritage is what created the community of Broken Hill. So nowadays Broken Hill is looking for a new boom business, and it believes they've found it in renewables. Broken Hill courted Hydrostar, a Canadian energy company that plans to use an old mine site to store 200 megawatts of energy in the form of compressed air. The idea is to essentially create an underground battery that would offset wind energy turbines when not in use. However, the construction for this battery is creating problems for the Naj's astrotourism business. It contributed mightily to light pollution and essentially eliminating the facade of their romantic stargazing experience thanks to a 24-7 construction site adjacent to their property.

Bill McGeeney: 31:55

Despite all communication between both parties, it appears the Nash family feels quite slighted and is considering bringing forth legal action. On the flip side, mayor of Broken Hill quote I support the project, understanding that it can have an impact on business, and I do hope they sort it out. But for me, as mayor, I have to do what I believe is in the good for this entire city. This is very similar to a story we had back in January about Eli Nevada, where a dark sky tourism company was really kind of worried about a new energy project going on there which would turn a mountain right adjacent to where they're at into essentially a battery. I guess on one side of me right, this is good for the environment.

Bill McGeeney: 32:40

It's a net benefit to move away from using fossil fuels. You're capturing some of that wind energy and being able to reuse it at different times. On the other end, these people are now they really can't run their business. So is astro-tourism really just kind of using a time that's available to them, in that you don't have other industry in an area at that moment. But now, since the resources around them are becoming more valuable, astrotourism is kind of filling a void. And now the resources around them are going to be used in other ways and astrotourism can go bye-bye. Going to be used in other ways and astrotourism can go bye-bye.

Betty Buckley: 33:17

Tell you what I think. I think there are two different things that need to learn to live together, because they're both important. So astrotourism, to me, is important for people because people seek connection, and one of the things that we talk about in my film, connecting the Stars to Storytelling, is that people have sought connection. And people were here. We want to know why, right. And so you look back at ancient rock art and you see people that may not have had the technology we have, but they were very sophisticated in their thinking and wanting to know their origin story. And so I think people, yes, they enjoy seeing the stars, they enjoy the science behind it, they love looking at the deep sky images they can sometimes see and capture. But I think the astrotourism you find this sense of connection and there's an extension to that. You find this sense of connection and there's an extension to that you know when you look at other ancient communities and how important the stars were to them and to their culture and who they are as people. So that's one thing.

Betty Buckley: 34:38

The new technologies, you know to say that it might be holding a space to me is uh, is not a fit, it's a. It's a separate thing, because the new technologies are absolutely important to try to wean ourselves off of fossil fuel that have what like 50 years left even the explodium permian basin I just drove through, or on one side you have hundreds of pump jacks and wells and in the background are windmills. So at some point one has to overtake the other, and so exploring those technologies to me just takes more science and more research to find a way to do it without impacting the beauty of something that's important to us as human beings, of connecting to who we are.

Bill McGeeney: 35:20

Yeah, there was a story we had a couple months back where a company they're toying with putting satellites up which are giant mirrors and they're going to target them to hit solar plants, essentially, so that way they can still gain energy over the course of the night. To me, that again conflicts with what kind of night experience do you want? Do you want a night experience that's going to be lit up and is night sacrifice, because we have different, in this case, energy needs, or are we still going to keep that connection with night?

Leo Smith: 35:54

One way that the astro-tourism industry could react in a situation like the one you described is to actually take the case to court as a matter of nuisance. In the same way that if there were loud noises that were at that level decibel level that is recognized in court cases as being a nuisance you could get someone to stop. And with lighting, that light is just a matter of a different type of wavelength coming across. It's not a sound wave, but it's a light wave and it does stuff that we disturb in the same way that the sound wave disturbs.

Leo Smith: 36:40

And one of the benefits of going to court is that whoever's on the other side that's operating in this way, that's interfering, is much more likely to try to find a way to compromise rather than having to pay tens of thousands of dollars to an attorney and risk the fact that they may lose in court anyhow. Why not just come up with some type of a solution that you could implement and make this go away? But a lot of times people won't get to that point until they're served with papers that now they are a defendant. Definitely, leo. And that's what's happening here in the El Shoin case, where they're served with papers that now they are a defendant.

Bill McGeeney: 37:17

Definitely, Leo. And that's what's happening here in the El Choyan case, where they're contemplating bringing it forth. Yeah, Essentially it's a nuisance claim, I believe. Yeah, Moving on to landscape lighting, it's really not often that I actually have stories on landscape lighting. Leo, this is going to be right up your alley and I know you have some thoughts stowed away on this one.

Bill McGeeney: 37:40

First, up out by the ocean on the far end of Long Island, is East Hampton, New York, whereby the community's public safety and code enforcement officer, Kevin Cooper, has a bone to pick with the static blight of landscape lighting. Per Cooper, they're lighting everything that's green, New builds. It's just ridiculous. The current ordinance will permit 1,000 lumen uplighting on trees that must be turned off by midnight. A proposal would reduce that to 600 lumens, with a turnoff time at 11 pm. Pathway and foliage lighting would follow a similar rule. Why? Well, it might be because the enforcement team goes to bed at 11 pm, so therefore they wouldn't be able to respond to complaints thereafter.

Bill McGeeney: 38:21

Over on the north side of the island, however, nights are not so dark, apparently, as an editorial in a Riverhead local rips apart the government of Riverhead for allowing new businesses to not just skirt Starry Sky ordinances, but also to validate violations through their variances. Skirt starry sky ordinances, but also to validate violations through their variances. Pretty article quote since that behemoth opened up 20 years ago and we haven't been able to sit in our backyard and look up at the sky and enjoy a starry night. That's how much light Riverhead Center, the commercial strip mall that's in question, gives off. It seems to illuminate the sky above about as much as it illuminates the asphalt and cement below.

Bill McGeeney: 39:01

Riverhead's dark sky ordinance came into effect in 2008, requiring existing bulbs to be compliant by 2017, which Riverhead Center apparently in the article, has bucked. So it's a tale of two communities no less than 30 miles apart, with vastly different perspectives on enforcement. I know before the show, Leo, you mentioned some of the difficulties with enforcement. What's there to do here? Riverhead? It looks like they took into consideration your depreciation argument, but it doesn't seem like anything may be happening.

Leo Smith: 39:28

Right now there's something called the International Energy Conservation Code, IECC. Provisions in that code deal with landscape lighting and require that landscape lighting be turned off one hour after the close of business and not turned on until one hour before the opening of business. And all of that sounds wonderful, but it really comes down to enforcement. But it really comes down to enforcement. It's so much easier if the community addresses these requirements at the time that the applicant comes before them to get that permit to build that building. And if they do that then everything is in line and all of the regulations are followed because that builder wants to build that building. But if they don't do it there and the building gets built, then it becomes very difficult to go back in and try and get them to do it right when they didn't do it right the first time. So from a zoning perspective, the ingredients are all there.

Leo Smith: 40:34

Here in Connecticut we have a proposed state building code amendment that is right now in play to require landscape lighting to be turned off. But the issue also has to do with what is landscape lighting? How much do you allow for lumens? When they talk about low voltage landscape lighting, what does that mean? How many volts, you know how much lumen output do you have, and so a thousand lumens that's a lot of lumens. You know you really don't need that. Maybe 300 might be the ceiling that would be more appropriate.

Bill McGeeney: 41:14

So what it's worth? Is it more difficult for communities to enforce after the fact because they have to go through legal action?

Leo Smith: 41:26

Not so much that, as much as the pushback that they'll get from you. You put yourself in the position of being the building owner. You invested your money, you built the outdoor lighting facilities with something that at that time you thought was okay. Why didn't they tell you that you couldn't do that? Why should you have to go back and spend that money to fix it? They should have told you at the time of your application that you couldn't do it that way. So there's pushback.

Betty Buckley: 41:51

The legislation is important. I mean having the laws in place speaking to what Leo just said is important, so that it's not this you know coming back situation. It's at the, you know, like when you try to build anything, or especially like a lead building, there's all these requirements.

Bill McGeeney: 42:10

That's an excellent point. Yeah, well, that's a tale of two different communities, right. And to your point earlier, leo, having a change in the time of cutoff, where they explicitly mentioned that, because it's when the enforcement guys go to bed. I don't know if that plays as much a positive in there. Maybe they go get up at 1030 and get out the door, but I imagine if it's January they're not running out the door.

Leo Smith: 42:34

No, it's more a case of, I think, that they're overloaded and if you can bring the issue before your planning and zoning commission the commission that grants the permit to go ahead and build that building if you can do that, then part of that process should include the submission of an outdoor lighting plan.

Leo Smith: 43:03

It shows exactly where the lights are going to be located, the make and model of the light, their classification and book rating for backlight, uplight and glare. All of that should be part and parcel to that application process. So if you do that and they understand the builders understand that they have to have an uplight rating of zero Well, they'll get their lighting expert in there to get the right kind of light fixture that qualifies, so they don't have any problem over here. Now let's move on to lavatories or whatever they want to talk about. But if you can get that addressed as part of the application process of submitting an outdoor lighting plan ahead of time, it's wonderful, I guess real fast before we leave this topic, is it the case that sometimes just ordinances are to owners?

Leo Smith: 43:53

With regards to outdoor lighting? No, they're not, Because what happens here is this you can go ahead and you can buy this fixture over here. That is horrible. Or you can get a cutoff version of that fixture that looks pretty much exactly the same, that now is fully shielded and there is little or no price differential between the two. So from a consumer standpoint it doesn't cost more money to do it right. The same way, with color temperature, a 3,000 Kelvin good warm light does not cost more money than a 4,000 or 5,000 high blue level light, than it is being a nuisance of having, you know, just spend a lot more money to do it the right way. Or you can do it this way over here.

Leo Smith: 44:50

And the only time that it's on the cheap is when someone tries to get away with putting in only two lights, let's say, in a fairly large parking lot. That are these giant lights that shine almost horizontally straight out that way to light that corner way over there, from way over here. Ok, that avoids the imposition of having to put in four or five more lighting poles and lower the light levels and spread it evenly. But if they don't do it the right way, then they're not complying with the Illuminating Engineering Society's recommended practices on parking lot lighting either. So if you want to do it, do it right and you don't have to spend a lot of money. What the rules are, but why they're there, and the fact that you can get what you need at relatively the same price as you would have paid for the lights that are definitely bad I wish more people knew that, leo, something that I don't know if it permeates down to your average electrician, who's probably helping a lot of the smaller companies out with that.

Leo Smith: 46:04

That's right. If you get a lighting designer in, you've definitely probably hit a home run in terms of getting the good lights. But if you want to go on the cheap, because you don't want to have to hire a lighting designer, instead you bring in a sales rep from a lighting company and they make their recommendations. It's all going to be based on product sales and commissions and things like that, with no considerations to light pollution.

Bill McGeeney: 46:29

Well, staying on the landscaping topic, we had two articles helping people understand how to properly use light in their yard. First comes from Birmingham Live, and that is an article that mentioned the following advice for anyone who's looking to put landscape lighting in their yard so keep lights aimed downward. Use hoods and shielding where possible. Turn off garden lights when not in use. Use low intensity warm lighting and encourage local councils to adopt switch off schemes for street lighting. I doubt that will happen, but hey, you gotta give it a try. And then we have this next article out of Homes and Gardens, where they spoke to a legal expert quote unquote about where you can place your lights to stay on the right side of the law, and this is dealing with light trespass. When asked, can my light shine into my neighbor's yard, derek Jock, an attorney from Detroit, states that most local ordinances require lights to be mounted at a lower height, typically limited at the roof level of your home, but no higher, which sounds kind of high. And continuing along, jack mentions as long as you have made reasonable adjustments to prevent lighting trespass, the law is probably on your side regarding the complaints from your neighbors. So these are two articles that spoke a little bit about it. I'm not sure about the latter article. I think that's a little bit high to have lights from your roof level. I can see that spilling quite easily over into your neighbor's yard.

Bill McGeeney: 47:59

Leo, if I recall, new Haven tried to put an ordinance in to regulate landscape lighting this past winter. Right, I'm not familiar with that. Okay, yeah, how'd it come across in a feed? And one of the things was to use I believe it was changing angle of the lighting as well. We had a prior guest who actually utilized top-down lighting for the landscape lighting in their house and that was Drew Evans. So outside in their yard they actually utilize these principles here. And it kept the lights aimed downward. It kept it kind of modest lighting, but I don't see that as being too mainstream. So it's interesting to see an article like that actually.

Leo Smith: 48:36

Well, when you look at what the practices are, when you take Marriott, for example, now that's commercial, right, but the issue is whether it's commercial or residential. When you see their illumination of bushes and trees and the building itself, facade lighting you don't see any direct glare. Everything is indirect lighting. Okay, all the light itself is hidden from view, so it doesn't interfere with what we'll call the pretty picture. And when you want to light your garden or your landscape or even the facade of your home, if you can do it in a way that does not cause light to trespass onto other property, does not cause the light to create a glare you actually have an improved vision. When you put the glare in there, it detracts. So if you're out there to do it and you want to do it right, put the light in in a way that hides the light from direct view and instead all you see is the indirect lighting on the bushes and trees and the facade of the building.

Bill McGeeney: 49:49

We're going to get into the ecology segment in the second half of the show, but I suspect a lot of in my mind, landscape lighting. The more important factor isn't really sky glow, it's more the impact you have on the actual ecology within that environment. But before we wrap up today's show just want to go through some designations that we want to review for this month. So congrats to Bruna Dunes, idaho, for becoming the third international dark sky place. Uwe Pazvik in National Park over in Norway for becoming a international dark place, and down the land, down under palm beach, the north side of sydney becomes australia's first urban dark sky place. But wait, there's more.

Bill McGeeney: 50:32

The dedham vale dark sky campaign group over in united kingdom recognized two heroes in their inaugural award box. Village counselor angela mclaughlin and council clerk karen thompson were recognized for their role in installing ecologically responsible lighting that included lower brightness and warm temperature, colored lighting, leds facing downward to improve parking lot visibility and reduce glare, and fixtures that were also equipped with a 10-minute timer to switch off automatically when not being used. Leo, you mentioned something about having more responsive lights, I believe before the shake Motion sensor. Yeah, is there a significant cost to having more responsive lighting? It's not significant.

Leo Smith: 51:20

When you consider that you're going to have to buy that mounting pole and you're going to have to buy the light fixture and the electrical and everything else to have a control in there that would also provide you with that regulation of light when it comes on and when it doesn't, might cost you between 50 and a hundred dollars, but when you consider the savings that that will generate over time, it's well worth it.

Bill McGeeney: 51:43

Excellent. Well, because I look at these, we have smart cities right, we're getting into a smart city store in the second half. I just wonder why we don't see more of these out in the wild, maybe. I guess integration is probably costly, maybe that's it.

Leo Smith: 51:55

It's again, probably more, that people don't think about it. Picture yourself building a building. You've got a million things that you have to do. Lighting is just one of them. Right, and now are you really going to get into the intricacies of the lighting and the way that you can control it and everything else, or are you going to just say I put them up, and what about that elevator, you know, and you get into all the other aspects of construction?

Bill McGeeney: 52:22

You're checking the boxes, right yeah?

Betty Buckley: 52:25

Where I live. So everyone lives on at least an acre and a lot of people move um from houston, very urban and concerned about crime, so they'll move and they'll build a big, beautiful house, like leo was mentioning the development, and they just put up the kind of safety lighting they're used to having in houston. What it introduces, you know the, the light intrusion that you were talking about, the spillover, and it's not as safe. I think I did a deep dive and found an article about how actually thinking that things lit up really bright are safer and they're actually not. What is safer is something that surprises. So if you light up your house, for somebody to come and pilfer everything and have a really good view of what they're seeing, as opposed to it's dark, and they approach your house and the light goes on and surprises them and that makes them, you know, unhappy and run off, which is what you want.

Bill McGeeney: 53:24

It's a stimulus.

Betty Buckley: 53:26

Yeah, it's just the awareness that the motion lights are actually more safe than just great big old lighting. That's kind of. Some people think I'm just being safe and protecting my property and I don't care about sky glow and the night skies and the stars and I don't care about sky glow and you know, the night skies and the stars. But if they realize it's, it's could be safer and it's not really more expensive. It's a different choice.

Bill McGeeney: 53:55

Betty, I do have one anecdote on that. I don't know if any of you guys ever use a neighborhood app. It's always good here in the city to see what's going on in neighborhoods and a lot of people post their ring videos and stuff like that, and one of them was about some people who were going and checking see if car doors are unlocked and you have a main drag in front of their house. That's, that's lit, and then the side street which doesn't have any direct streetlights on it, and the person, what they did, was they and this is probably how the person first recognized it. Right, the person pulled up their car, kind of just on the right side of the screen where the little street goes out to here, and it hits a main drag that is lit, but this street isn't really lit. They kept the car running with the headlights out and they saw someone go in the light, in the light beams of the actual car, go checking each car and looking inside each car and right there on camera. Otherwise, if they had streetlights they could just walk up and down the street looking inside them. So it's just a little anecdote to your point. So let's stop here for today and we'll pick up the rest of the show in two weeks time.

Bill McGeeney: 55:01

I'd like to thank my guests. Today. We have Leo Smith, who wears many hats, and most recently his new project, the Coalition to Reduce Light Pollution, and filmmaker Betty Buckley, who created this phenomenal film, the Stars at Night, and you can find that over at thestarsatnightorg. As a reminder, your home can join the conversation over on LinkedIn or Instagram, facebook or even by texting the show right from the link in the show notes. We record this show one fell swoop each month, and this month's recording date was July 28th. If you're a supporter of the show, you can join us as a live audience member, where we typically have a little chat once the recording is actually done. So I want to thank my guests today Once more. I'm your host, bill McGeaney, reminding you to only shine the light where it's needed. Have a great start to your august friends.