Using a small number of slides to illustrate her point, Ms. Jackson noted Charlestown's distinction as having perhaps the darkest patch of sky of anywhere along the eastern seaboard. The Frosty Drew Observatory (of which I am a proud member) in Ninigret Park attracts tourists as well as visitors to festivals in the park. People have relocated to Charlestown because of our dark skies.
I remember the first weeks after Cathy and I moved here, sitting on our deck and watching the meteors flash by, seeing the arc of the Milky Way and I remember thinking that I could see more stars in the sky than any other place I've been, except maybe Montana.
Ms. Jackson showed one panorama slide where Charlestown was a patch of dark flanked by brightness washing out the sky to the west (Westerly, and I think Foxwoods, too) and to the north (Providence metro area). Ms. Jackson said that DOT's brilliant lighting at the new I-195 bridge in Providence "totally wiped us out."
As I wrote in an earlier article, the Planning Commission has been working on an anti-lighting ordinance for a long time now and seems to be heading in the same direction that they did on the tree ordinance. That is, creating an ordinance that tries to regulate down to the most minute detail, but is woefully unenforceable.
My wife Cathy smacked me upside the head after I wrote that earlier article, saying that I was a jerk because of course it's important to protect our dark sky from unnecessary lighting. The town has actually done a pretty good job of regulating lighting on private property, even without an ordinance, by working with planners, builders and property owners. Community education and some peer pressure works, too.
But it was interesting to see in Frosty Drew's letter to the Council that one source of trouble for them was the Police Station, which had an all-night spotlight on the flag (required under the US Flag Code if you're going to keep it up 24 hours a day). Solution: lower the flag at sundown - it's not a public safety need that the flag fly 24 hours a day. Commenters on my first article noted that one of the worst night time light offenders is the RIDOT facility, which is outside the reach of any town ordinance. Then, of course, there are the surrounding communities.
By all means, we should turn off the lights. It saves our sky and it saves money. When we need lights for safety, public protection or security, let those be the exceptions. And use the best available technology to focus necessary lighting where it needs to go. Unless we're expectly an attack from Al-Quaeda dirigibles, we don't need to allow lights to pollute the dark sky.
But after seeing the Frosty Drew presentation, I am left wondering what we can realistically do, other than police ourselves, to save this important resource.
