By Don Patterson
Staff Reporter
The MD of Foothills is working to keep residents in the dark at night time.
MD council expressed its support at a March 4 meeting for work developing a proposed Dark Skies Initiative to reduce light pollution in the Foothills.
MD planning officer Spencer Croil said the municipality is researching light pollution bylaws and policies in place elsewhere in North America.
“In general, we’re still in preliminary stages of research,” he said. “We’re looking at what works best in each municipality and trying to fit something in for the MD.”
Once complete, Croil said the dark sky bylaw could include height limits for light standards, specify certain types of lights and set requirements that all external light fixtures be full cut-off lights, which restrict light beams downward. It could also establish rules for future retrofit of lighting and set criteria to exclude existing light fixtures.
Croil said it will encompass the whole MD and will give special consideration for areas surrounding each of the observatories in the area: the University of Calgary’s Rothney Observatory north of Turner Valley and the Wilson Coulee Observatory near Strathcona Tweedsmuir School, run by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada’s Calgary chapter.
Council also called for changes to be made to lights at intersections in the MD, both when new lights are installed and old ones are replaced, to ensure they don’t add to light pollution.
Croil said full cut off lights will have less of an impact on the observatories.
“The reason full cut off fixtures are so efficient is they force all the light downwards,” he added.
“That being the case, you may have to have more lights installed, but the glare of lights being passed (upwards) is very low.”
Once completed, it’s expected the bylaw will be included within the Municipal Development Plan and the Land Use bylaw.
The MD is working to develop an education and awareness initiative to go along with the Dark Sky plan.
“We’re trying to educate the public and get them to understand and become knowledgeable in the area so they become more proactive and reactive,” Croil added.
Coun. Terry Waddock said there appears to be a will among the MD and area municipalities to work on the issue.
However, he said they still have to work out what it will mean for builders and developers.
“Council is supportive of it,” he said.
“We’re starting to do something about it, which I think is great.”
“For any development, the idea would be to come up with what we would ask builders and developers to do.
Rothney Observatory director Philip Langill said the policy could help prolong the facility’s lifespan.
“Light pollution, basically, prevents us from seeing the interesting stuff we want to see,” he said. “Anything we can do to prevent light from going up into the sky and increasing the background light will prolong our ability to do research and prolong our teaching programs at the university.”
Langill met with MD officials to propose a “wish list” of items he hoped to see included the policy.
“Pretty much everything on my wish list was stuff that council agreed on, so I’m very, very happy,” he said.
The initiative arose from a presentation Langill made to council in 2006 regarding a proposed development and the impact of lights from expanding development on the observatory.
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