It's time to get serious about lighting code

Lou Marzeles
News Editor

     There's been a lot of talk around town of late regarding-yes, here it comes again-dark sky policy. That's the city and county codes regarding outdoor light fixtures in the area, designed to prevent what scientists rather poetically call sky glow. It sounds pretty, and if you didn't have to use a telescope to try to see through it, sometimes it really is rather striking to see the reflection of man-made lights bouncing off the sky. Perhaps it gives us a (false) sense of human accomplishment: look at that! We can light up the sky!
     But such a feat is simply all too easy in this era. What a turn human history has taken, from only about a hundred years ago when electricity was a novelty awaiting fulfillment, and the brightest urban lights made by man were lackluster gas lamps, to today. In this age, satellite images (do a search sometime on "earth lights") reveal that from space, most of the planet looks lit up like Las Vegas.
     We've definitely taken charge of electricity. A more pressing concern today might be: can we take responsibility for what we do with it? It's an age-old tussle, the pull of creature-comfort convenience versus the call to a controlled usage of our capabilities. In this case, and to bring this philosophical discourse back to here and now, it's the immediate need for enforcement of the city's outdoor lighting ordinance verses the inertia of the way things are.
     The lighting ordinance is meant to protect the Goldendale Observatory's ability to see through the sky glow of the area, which already significantly obfuscates the telescope's vision. So what? The big deal is that the observatory helps protect Goldendale. Take away the observatory's fame and the roughly 40,000 people a year who come to the city specifically to see the observatory, and what kind of economic impact do you suppose that would have?
     It's seriously time to get serious about lighting code enforcement. Let's get it done.