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.
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. Residents celebrated 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.
“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.
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. The city is applying for a formal dark sky designation based on dark skies protected in city open space along northern Front Range foothill.
