Astronomers Try to Illuminate Region on Threats to Night Skies

By Graeme Zielinski
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 25, 2000; Page B01

Saturn's not bright enough this early in the evening to punch through the halo hanging over the D.C. area.

"It would be right about over there," said Pete Johnson, a Centreville software designer and president of the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club, pointing toward the glow above Washington fed by lights shining at office buildings, burger joints, malls, homes and highways.

Johnson and a few of the club's members were gathered in a clearing in Middleburg, in western Loudoun County, peering into the heavens with their telescopes to see the globular clusters and nebulas they couldn't see in a city.

But as the effects of sprawl gobble the night, amateur astronomers are finding it harder to view the galaxy even in outlying suburbs.

In a field 40 miles west of the District that once afforded a view of the tentacles of the Milky Way, at least 50 degrees of the heavens were obscured by a dull blush that, Johnson joked, suggested the aftermath of a nuclear bomb.

"It's a tragedy," John Berryman, a club member from the eastern Loudoun community of Cascades, said in the dark. "We've been on the Earth thousands of years plotting constellations. And now, in 30 years, we've been able to eclipse the night skies. Will our kids be able to see the stars? We really should do something."

Astronomy enthusiasts in the region have. By turning their sights earthward and making political calculations, they are influencing zoning laws, hoping to bring darkness back to night and stop the march of the glow into countryside skies.

They've testified at local board meetings, buttonholed legislators, analyzed zoning ordinances and mounted letter-writing campaigns, all in the hopes of elevating a cause they say benefits everybody.

"I call it enlightened self-interest," said club member John Nusbaum, a Sterling resident and self-described conservative who has become active in light-pollution efforts in Loudoun County.

It's one of the places in the region where dark skies advocates, many of whom have never been active in politics, have made inroads over the past year.

"One of the problems with rapid growth and urban sprawl is that areas that used to have beautiful night skies are finding them vanishing," said Bob Gent, of Alexandria, an official with the International Dark Skies Association and a frequent visitor to local government boards. "All over the metropolitan area, things are happening to stop that."

In Fairfax County, planners are working on language that would limit the amount of light thrown off by commercial buildings and homes. Fauquier County supervisors last year passed one of the strictest lighting ordinances in the state, spurred in part by lighting at a local gas station that one supervisor described as a "helicopter landing pad."

In Maryland, a state legislator is preparing to introduce measures that would affect lighting levels. And in the streets of the District, utility workers are replacing "cobra head" lights, which throw excess light upward, with the "cutoff" lights preferred by astronomy enthusiasts such as Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D).

By the accounts of local and state legislators, light pollution has gained prominence in recent years and has become affixed to the larger debate over sprawl. Much of the information used in the debates is provided by groups such as the Dark Skies Association, which comprises many astronomers.

"Their contributions have been critical," said Jane Kirchner, a Loudoun County Planning Commission member. "They have the experience and the data and the expertise."

One thing they might not have is the political spotlight. Light pollution has been low on the agenda of anti-sprawl activists more concerned with traffic congestion, lost open space and crowded schools.

Dark skies advocates acknowledge the importance of those issues. But they say that, unlike costly bond issues or controversial zoning, the solutions to light pollution are politically salable and would probably lead to energy savings.

"This is a matter of concern for reasonable people. This is not something kooky," said Maryland Del. Nancy K. Kopp (D-Montgomery), an astronomy enthusiast herself who is researching legislation to combat light pollution.

Said Gent: "It's not like all the other environmental problems. We're not talking about making people take a nuclear waste dump or a landfill . . . or to build more roads."

The strongest arguments for preventing excessive lighting have nothing to do with astronomy, Johnson said.

Extra light also causes glare on roadways, creating a safety problem, he said. And "light trespass" because of badly angled lights is a neighbor-to-neighbor issue. "People don't want to have a light shining on them when they sleep," he said.

The biggest political impediment, light-pollution foes say, is lack of knowledge about their cause and feasible solutions.

"I think this has been below the radar, because I don't think the average person is aware anything can be done. I think you just assume that if you want to see the beauty of the night sky, you have to go to the mountains," said Ann Somerset, an at-large council member in Gaithersburg who was elected on a platform that included opposition to light pollution.

The biggest administrative impediment to stopping light sprawl is the general lack of zoning ordinances and other regulations limiting the types and strengths of illumination.

"As far as I know, we've never dealt with this issue," said Fairfax County Supervisor T. Dana Kauffman (D-Lee), who is pushing light-pollution legislation.

The dark skies movement itself is relatively new, said University of Virginia astronomy professor Phil Ianna, but it has grown on the East Coast as businesses have ratcheted up their lighting to attract customers.

"Some of those things are so offensive to so many people that it has turned a lot of people into political activists on behalf of dark skies," said Ianna, head of Virginia's chapter of the Dark Skies Association.

The main policies pushed by activists include limiting lighting levels and installing cutoff lights, which shine toward the ground--not sideways or upward.

In Middleburg, the astronomy club's members discussed the earthly political activity but quickly turned their attention back to the skies.

"I'd like my kids to be able to look at this and not have to drive five hours to do it," Nusbaum said.