City Could Save On Energy Bill By Turning Off Its Own Lights

"Every Kilowatt We Save is one we don't have to buy" Quoted from LIGHT READING, Seattle City Light's news letter of September 2000. However, Seattle City Light continues to promote flood lights, pedestrian lights, ever increasing lighting levels and doubling of street lights (from every 300 feet to every 150 feet unnecessarily increasing maintenance requirements and complicating the infrastructure). Patricia Agostino recognizes the waste of energy caused by leaving holiday lighting on continuously for two months (See: letters to the editor, January 2). 100 watts for each of 40 trees totals 5760 kilowatt hours for the holiday season. That will heat and light my home for a year! But, poor Patricia is made to feel guilty for suggesting that the lights be turned off. The Association suggests; "The decorative lighting makes individuals feel safer in the Junction". Why would anyone feel less safe in the Junction at anytime? The Junction has always been a safe and secure place with or without holiday lights. The West Seattle Junction Association is trying to create a festive, fun, safe place to eat, shop or just enjoy. Unfortunately they have been influenced by decades of Seattle City Light (SCL) preying on our fear and paranoia, promoting more and more lights and glare as a panacea for traffic hazards, and crime. As a result SCL is installing 32, 13 foot high pedestrian luminaries that will consume 9811 KWH annually. That would heat and light my home for at nearly two years. If the 250 watt 35 foot high street lights were removed the lower level lights would make sense. The 35 foot high lights do a good job of uselessly illuminating the roof tops (there has been no crime or traffic on the roof tops that I'm aware). When it comes to wasting energy, I estimate that the Port of Seattle facilities adjacent to West Seattle uses 7440 megawatt hours annually for lighting . That would heat and light 744 typical Seattle homes for a year or it would heat and light my home for 1200 years! Why Pier 5 needs 66 poles supporting twelve 1000 watt luminaries to light inanimate asphalt and cargo containers is more than I can understand. Or why are 25 cranes festooned with 20 lights each? The really sad part is that only 20% of the light falls on the Port of Seattle property. The rest of the light is sprayed well beyond Port of Seattle boundaries, or into the sky, turning the Emerald City into the Sodium Yellow City. The Mother of all energy waste is street lighting. Seattle City Light is in control of 100,000 street lights. I estimate that the street lights average 200 watts apiece and consume 87,600 megawatt hours annually. You figure out how many homes that would serve. Most of Seattle's street lights are of the uncontrolled, naked arc type which are becoming outlawed in many communities. We could have safe, effective street lighting with 1/10 the energy consumption by thinning the lights where they are redundantly clustered and stacked (as in the Junction), determining a realistic lighting level, using modern metal-halide lighting (white light with 100,000 hour life), using properly designed optics and shading elements to distribute and direct the light and, most important of all; defining the target area and directing the light only onto the target area. Seattle City Light apparently has no program to improve and reduce the lighting that they have domain over. They ask us consumers (and City Light owners) to change our light bulbs from 60 watt incandescent to 15 watt compact fluorescent yet they insist on 100 watt street lights where 30 watts would be more appropriate. They tell us consumers that a Color Rendering Index (CRI) below 60 is bad ("dull and distorted colors"), yet SCL gives us CRI 28 lighting on our city streets. Not only do these yellow lights severely distort color, they reduce visual acuity. We must recognize and reverse this bad, runaway, over lighting of the City. On my street alone the illumination level has been increased by a factor of 10 since 1983. The neighborhood now resembles a penitentiary yard. Nobody complained about lack of light prior to 1983. So what's going on? Only those people who sell lamps, luminaries, or electricity (SCL) know! What they don't want you to know is that Magnolia Boulevard has no street lights, yet people jog, walk their dogs, enjoy the view, push baby strollers, and drive at all hours of the day or night in perfect safety and security. Why can't the Magnolia model be applied to Alki Drive for example, and other Seattle streets? I understand the Parks department may be credited for the pleasant and sensible absence of street lighting on Magnolia Blvd. They have made up for it, however, with abysmal parks and sports field lighting (e.g. Jefferson Park golf driving range and Fauntleroy Tennis Courts). Aside from the energy waste of over-lighting, stray light and improperly directed lighting, we are just beginning to understand the adverse effects of bad outdoor lighting on human health, the ecology and the environment. Thanks for your awareness Patricia. We all need to be aware and concerned about unnecessary lighting and energy waste as you. Fellow City Light Owners, voice your concerns to our City Council especially Heidi Wills, Chair: Energy and Environmental Policy.

Terrence M. McCosh, Fauntleroy

WEST SEATTLE HERALD, Vol. 83 No. 6 Wed., Feb. 21, 2001