NY Moves To Regulate Illumination

For those unfamiliar with the issue, light may not seem as serious a contaminant as a toxic-waste dump. However, a growing number of advocates in New York and around the country are making politicians take notice of how misdirected street lights, fixtures on homes and light poles in parking lots waste energy, harm animals and ruin views of the night sky.

For Susan Harder, light pollution has become an everyday annoyance after she and her husband bought an East Hampton home with all glass walls.

The retired art dealer took up the fight to bring community awareness and to push for legislation after her neighbors a few years ago installed a 500-watt bulb that shines into her yard, disrupting her stargazing.

"It looked like a train was coming into my house," said Harder, who has a similar problem with lights from St. Mark's Church shining into her sixth-floor walk-up in the East Village. "Until there's a law, you have the inertia of people who simply don't want to change."

But now, under a bill overwhelmingly passed by both houses of the Legislature in June and awaiting the governor's signature, New York would become the seventh state to enact legislation to regulate outdoor lighting in parks, streets and residential and business areas.

Several dozen municipalities in the state, including seven on Long Island, have some form of light regulations. Tomorrow, the Suffolk County Legislature will hold public hearings on a light pollution proposal that is even stricter than the pending state bill.

"It's going to make everybody aware of the costs of excess ambient light," said Sen. Mike Balboni (R-East Williston), who sponsored the Senate bill. The legislation, also sponsored by Assemb. Pete Grannis (D-Manhattan), would require state agencies to install street lights that focus their illumination downward as replacements are needed, require the state Department of Environmental Conservation to designate "dark areas" to protect astronomy and ecological habitats and outlaw "light trespass" where outdoor lighting from one site intrudes on another's property.

The Legislature has not delivered the bill to the governor's office because the sponsors said they are waiting for input from state agencies that would be affected.

Officials at the Department of Transportation said that, in principle, the law would be a great energy-conservation measure, but they wanted to examine the details more closely. A representative of the Department of Environmental Conservation said the agency does not plan to take a position on the issue. Joe Conway, a spokesman for Gov. George Pataki, said his office is "still reviewing the details of the legislation" before taking a position.

If the bill is signed into law, local governments would be given model guidelines to adopt and still would be allowed to set stricter rules, as in the case of Suffolk.

The Suffolk measure, sponsored by Legis. Jon Cooper (D-Lloyd Harbor), would regulate the direction, height and intensity of public and private outdoor lights. It would also control illuminated advertising signs outdoors, set curfews for lighting recreational fields and outlaw laser light shows or advertising spotlights.

Cooper said that regulating lighting would decrease energy use and reduce car accidents caused by glare. Darker streets would not necessarily be more dangerous, he said.

Government leaders in Suffolk and other parts of the country said part of the reason for the new momentum is that this summer's energy crunch is still fresh in people's minds. Environmentalists also say that stray lights throw off the ecosystem of everything from bird migration patterns to the birthing of sea turtles.

"It is known that night light has an impact on wildlife," said Jeff Jones, a spokesman for the Albany-based lobbying group Environmental Advocates.

One study that has recently captured the public's awareness has been the "First World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness," prepared earlier this summer by two astronomers from the University of Padua in Italy and one scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That report showed that one in five people on the planet cannot see the Milky Way at night because of artificial light sources. But activists are pointing to dozens of other reasons for regulating light, ranging from electricity-saving measures to the beneficial health effects brought on by better sleeping conditions.

"The same things that help astronomy have many other societal benefits," said Elizabeth Alvarez, associate director of the Tucson, Ariz., -based International Dark-Sky Association, which boasts 7,500 members in more than 70 countries and was started in 1988.

Some critics say the law would create unneeded bureaucracy. Others worry that local governments will get bogged down in neighborhood disputes over the definition of light trespass.

"The bill has a laudable intent but is probably unenforceable," said Assemb. Steve Levy (D-Holbrook) who voted against the measure. He adds that the bill "goes a bit too far" in terms of discouraging lighting on roadways and highways where safety issues are concerned and worries that state and local regulators will have to make arbitrary decisions as to what is and isn't excessive illumination.

"Light brings light into the night," Levy said. "Lighting is important for safety reasons."

(In Suffolk County, a hearing is set for 2:30 p.m. tomorrow at the William H. Rogers Building in Hauppauge on the light-pollution issue.)

By Pradnya Joshi
Staff writer Michael Rothfeld contributed to this story.