PIKES PEAK – White light shooting up from Colorado’s Front Range increasingly obliterates night, but communities statewide are pushing to restore starry skies.
“People want to see the stars,” said John Stokes, director of natural areas in Fort Collins, where a new Nature in the City strategy aims to ensure darkness.
“They remember their childhoods, when they lived in communities that had dark night skies and seeing the stars, perhaps planets. They miss that, want that and, to the extent they have that, want to keep it,” Stokes said.
Durango has enacted a light-control ordinance to improve night views and “sleeping conditions,” which requires turning off or dimming new commercial lights after 11 p.m.
Earlier this year, Westcliffe became the first municipality in Colorado, and 11th worldwide, to achieve an official designation as a dark sky town. The residents celebrated earlier this month by installing a public telescope west of the bowling alley on Main Street.
Other towns are weighing potential economic benefits of light control. And Colorado’s Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park this year joined 27 parks that have attained a separate dark sky designation.
Colorado efforts to temper light pollution are gaining momentum, said John Barentine, manager of the International Dark Sky Association, which certifies dark sky places. Recent efforts stand out because they involve cities where residents traditionally have resigned themselves to losing the night, Barentine said.
“The experience of being under an unpolluted, dark night sky draws us closer to something primeval and reminds us of the long history of humanity before electric lighting when the whole world shared a brilliant, starry night sky,” he said.
“We hope that when people from, say, Denver visit a dark sky park like Black Canyon of the Gunnison, they’ll see examples of good outdoor lighting, feel safe and secure in that space and take the thoughts home with them. It’s an indicator of success if they return home thinking, ‘Why can’t we have this where I live?’”
In Westcliffe, bringing back night was initially a way to lure astronomers, stargazers and other visitors to the Wet Mountain Valley. “But that’s just part of it,” said Gail Perkins, deputy town clerk.
“You look up. It’s amazing. ‘Did I just see that?’ It’s awesome. It feels as if the sky goes on forever. You can see far into it. It is beautiful,” she said.
Dark sky ordinances typically require downward-directed lighting using hoods, softer colors and lower intensity. Some of the new, energy-efficient LED lights cause problems because blue-white rays scatter.
Commercial advertisers and public safety groups have opposed light control. Police contend robust lighting deters crime. However, ecologists have found nighttime artificial light disorients turtles, birds and bugs. The World Health Organization and American Medical Association warn light pollution can lead to human health problems.
Fort Collins planners said council members increasingly hear from residents who want to be able to see stars. City officials embraced dark skies as one of the natural resources they manage, including in the new initiative to “integrate” nature into urban living, environmental planner Justin Scharton said.
The city is applying for a formal dark sky designation based on dark skies protected in city open space along northern Front Range foothills – the Soapstone Natural Area, adjacent to the Larimer County-managed Red Mountain area. Residents flock there at night.
Durango leaders are grappling with how diplomatically to enforce their light rules, saying they face steady complaints from residents about glare.
In Denver, city codes say new lights must be directed downward, and neighborhoods such as Stapleton have encouraged residents to minimize light pollution. However, nothing has been done about existing light systems.
Metro Denver night skies are more or less “ruined,” casualties of development, said Robert Stencel, a University of Denver astronomer.
Given they can’t just look up, up to 500 people a night visit DU’s historic Chamberlin Observatory for stargazing, Stencel said.
“There’s an interest again” in seeing stars and the planets, he said. “It’ll happen. We’re generating electricity in an unsustainable way. It is the will of the people.”
