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Please Contact
Us about what your community or region is
doing to stop light pollution, and what accomplishments
you have achieved. See the
Local Ordinance
page for a listing of passed or pending ordinances with
web sites, if known. |
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If you are a Texas IDA member and would
like to work with other IDA members in your area, at
your request we can send
you a confidential list of other members in your area.
If you will serve as an area ('cluster')
representative, please give us permission to give your
name and email address to other Texas IDA members and
interested persons.
April
2008: City of Marfa
Marfa lights ... 90% out!
The City of Marfa voted on Thursday, 3/27/08, to turn
off approximately 90% of the 250 or so light fixtures
currently in use for street lights. The City is
requesting that AEP (American Electric Power) turn them
off and leave them off for the foreseeable future. The
vote was three to two (3 to 2).
The Marfa City Manager has also requested that the
observatory assist the city in revising its outdoor
lighting ordinance to more accurately reflect
current lighting industry technologies and practices
with an emphasis on cost efficiency. This is not
unlike what Jeff Davis County did last Fall.
The primary motive for all this is financial. The City
is getting astronomically high electricity bills from
AEP. Armed with information regarding the poor cost
efficiency of the older light fixtures still in use,
along with information from the IDA (International
Dark-sky Association) showing the lack of
a correlation between lighting and crime (some studies
show crime *decreasing* with lower light levels), Marfa
seeks to reclaim much of the electricity costs currently
wasted skyward.
The time is ripe. Stay tuned.
January 2005: The
Fort Bend County lighting ordinance is serving as a model now for
local municipalities in FBC, and is being submitted to Brazoria
County Commissioners in much the same format. A County subdivision
built soon after the light ordinance was adopted, had Reliant
Energy/Centerpoint install full cutoff streetlights at the specified
levels; and Reliant reported back to a Ft. Bend Commissioner that
they were saving money. The commissioner said recently that he
hasn't received any complaints and that he wouldn't change any
wording for our submission of the light ordinance to Brazoria
County.
February 2005:
Outdoor Lighting Ordinance Passed in El Paso on February
8, 2005.
IDA member John Peterson, the Director of El Paso's Gene
Roddenberry Planetarium, and Corey Stone, President of
the El Paso Astronomy Club have been working since at
least 1992 to build public support for an outdoor
lighting ordinance. For more than five years they have
negotiated with commercial and private parties, and city
planning and zoning, to create an acceptable ordinance.
At last the City Council voted favorably on the final
version, which requires future lighting in town to be
shielded. The ordinance goes into effect in 90 days, and
includes a 'sunset' provision to require general
compliance by the end of 10 years. There were no
opposition speakers, and only one council person voted
against it.
El Paso, population 564,000, is the first major city
in Texas to have a separate code to regulate outdoor
lighting. Mr. Peterson said that their efforts to
increase public awareness through talks to neighborhood
associations and other groups made a huge difference in
gaining public support. Corey Stone of the El Paso
Astronomy Club said the comment they heard the most was,
"This just makes so much sense".
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For information:
"Never doubt that a small
group of dedicated citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it's the only thing that ever does."
Margaret Mead |
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May 2008
