Bill before council aims to dim D.C. lighting
By: Michael Neibauer
Examiner Staff Writer
March 4, 2009
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D.C. Councilwoman Mary Cheh wants to dim the bright lights of the big city.
The Ward 3 council member introduced legislation Tuesday to create a “deliberate regulation of lighting systems,” one that reduces electricity spending and restores “the view of the cosmic natural beauty of the night sky.”
“We should not have the light emitted upward or outward,” Cheh said during the council’s legislative meeting. “We should have it directed where it’s needed and no more than necessary.”
The problems of too much light are many, Cheh explained, notably high energy consumption, soaring costs and dangerous glare. According to the legislation, excessive light keeps human eyes from properly adjusting for night vision, affects worker productivity, contributes to insomnia and interrupts animal migration patterns.
The bill requires the D.C. Department of the Environment to produce a report within six months detailing options for reducing the District’s luminescence. Under the bill, the report must address the practicality of amending building codes to require the use of “most subtle fixtures,” defined as a fixture that is “fully shielded and emits no more lumens than necessary and practical to serve its purpose.”
Other measures to be considered: mandatory time-control lighting systems for new midsize commercial buildings; compulsory motion-controlled lighting for new large commercial buildings; and voluntary programs and incentives for residents and property owners to use less light. The aim, Cheh said, is to “put the best lights where they are needed.”
“She’s all about energy conservation and green building and all that,” Gail Edwards, executive vice president of the D.C. Building and Industry Association, said of Cheh. “We haven’t seen the bill. We just have to take a look at it and see if it’s practical.”
Better lighting means less air pollution, lower energy costs and benefits to both humans and wildlife, said Jim Dougherty, chairman of the Sierra Club’s D.C. chapter. Old fixtures that release most of their light into the sky are an atrocity, he said.
“Kids in the city don’t know anything about stars or constellation for that reason,” Dougherty said. “It’s really a crime. You should be able to see Orion. You should be to see the planets.”
