Becket — We have entered the darkest month. It is difficult to surpass the clarity and brilliance of a winter night sky. The Geminids meteor shower will peak next week and the Ursids later this month. As previously reported, some residents in Becket are moving toward passing a dark-sky bylaw, to protect this undervalued resource that still sets the Berkshires apart from much of the state.
Next month, on January 4, at 1 p.m., an open meeting will be held at Becket Town Hall to inform residents about the proposed lighting bylaw. Laurie Friedman of the Becket Dark Sky team told The Berkshire Edge they are hoping that the bylaw review committee will then, at their January 15 meeting, recommend to move it to the town manager and the Select Board so that the bylaw appears on the warrant for the 2025 Town Meeting.
As a member of the DarkSky Massachusetts chapter, Laurie Friedman convinced that group to hold their annual conference in Becket last month. She joined DarkSky Massachusetts over concerns about the light pollution from a huge marijuana-growing facility proposed for Becket. She and the rest of the Becket Dark Sky Team felt like they would made progress in getting people on board with the bylaw. She was excited for the public outreach opportunity, and DarkSky Massachusetts was equally thrilled, she said, when they found out that Becket’s conservation commission was going to host them free of charge, and that Chair David Johnson was going to cook and feed everyone dinner.
Dark-sky groups are learning that partnering with other entities, such as environmental and public-health groups, is key. When David Johnson was invited to a meeting of the Becket Dark Sky Team, he realized light pollution was important from an ecological standpoint. “What would it be like if we lost our dark skies?” he started to wonder. He described growing up with 300 acres behind his house. “As kids we could go sleep out there at night, with a 360-degree, panoramic view.” Returning to the western part of the state after living in brightly lit Amherst and Westborough, he said, “I would look up and feel like I was 10 years old all over again.”
Nicolas Pietroniro, Becket’s conservation agent, said that the dark-sky bylaw and conference are “right in line with what we’re trying to do.” Under Johnson’s leadership, the conservation commission has been spreading out beyond the time-consuming role of wetland permitting. Earlier this year, they hosted a climate change forum, Pietroniro said.
Friedman felt the conference was a success. A large proportion of those attending were Becket residents, but people came from as far as Nantucket, which is working to achieve dark-sky certification. James Lowenthal, president of DarkSky Massachusetts, said, “[I]t’s a pleasure to be so warmly hosted by a conservation commission, brought together by common interests.”
Lowenthal called light pollution “one of the most serious but least appreciated threats to human health and the environment. Unlike plastic in the oceans or greenhouse gases, light pollution is fixed by a flick of a switch.” Yet over 80 percent of the U.S. population can’t see the Milky Way from where they live, and only one percent of the population even knows what light pollution is. The movement is growing worldwide, however, and garnering media attention. “It’s already happening in Massachusetts,” said Lowenthal. The state dark-sky legislation the chapter had long pushed for may have failed, but hundreds of people have gone to the Cape Cod National Seashore’s dark-sky festival for three years running.
“Astrotourism” is taking off, and the potential for the Berkshires to consider its benefits was clear from Lowenthal’s presentation on the topic. People seek out areas where darkness is protected as a resource; those regions can request certification as International Dark Sky Places. He mentioned that the New York-based Rockland Astronomy Club held their 10-day summer star party at an RV park in Plainfield for many years. Astrotourism is minimally intrusive; in places already overrun with tourists, it can be a way “to shift the tenor of those visits.” Becoming a dark-sky destination “can become part of the identity of the place,” while also enhancing the health of people who live there, Lowenthal noted.
Researchers have started to understand “the connection between the disruption of the circadian rhythm and a process that leads to dementia and perhaps the onset of Alzheimer’s,” said John Barantine of Dark Sky Consulting. Zooming in from Tucson, he talked about the “State of the Science” report, which gathers the latest research on artificial light at night. Devastating for biodiversity, scientists “are beginning to see this as an important ecological stressor in addition to climate change. It’s arrived so recently on the scene that most species have had no time to adapt.” Artificial light may even be “changing the chemistry of the air over cities” by “interfering with processes that typically remove impurities from the air at night.”
Leora Radetsky of Design Lights Consortium emphasized how lighting also interacts with decarbonization and climate goals.
Becket Town Administrator Kathy Warden attended the conference and is supportive of the bylaw but thought the original one proposed was too overwhelming. She noted that “the tone that things are presented in is huge.” People feared losing rights on their property, but she believes that neighborly conversations, proceeding “slow and steady,” would win people over, rather than overregulating it, which would also lead to building inspectors being stretched thin.
Other presenters, such as DarkSky Massachusetts Communications Officer Kelly Beatty, agreed that enforcement is the trickiest part of outdoor-lighting ordinances, because it is complaint driven. Though 57 towns in Massachusetts have a bylaw, many aren’t very effective in part due to lack of enforcement. Any town considering one has to account for that. Debate at the conference suggested that bylaws need to be specific enough to be enforced, but if they get too complicated, that could backfire as well.
Michael Person, a founding member of DarkSky Massachusetts, offered the encouraging advice that “technical parameters are not how we sway minds.” Education around the five principles for responsible outdoor lighting (useful, targeted, low level, controlled, warm colored) will “get people thinking about their own lights.” If you are following them, he said, “you’re probably fine.”
