"Dark Skies" Meeting Highlights

Group for the East End’s Jen Skilbred set the tone, stating that the impacts of light pollution are wide-ranging and significant:

Night-hunting animals, migrating birds and mating insects are disoriented by bright lights. Plants rely on changing daylight hours to map the seasons, and these patterns are disrupted by all-night lighting. For humans, nighttime light disrupts our circadian rhythms and sleep.

As for safety — often an argument for installing abundant lighting — such light causes dark shadows, making it more difficult to detect objects and movement. Surprisingly, the bright lighting that we often associate with increased safety may actually have just the opposite effect.

The Southold Town Code, enacted in 2010, prohibits uplighting on residential building and requires warmer-colored lights and shields on motion detectors. Also, light should not cross a property line. Ms. Skilbred also emphasized the importance of talking with neighbors and building community around this issue.

Electrician Ben Doroski of Custom Lighting of Suffolk stressed that certain kinds of lights are allowed by Southold Town code— and some are banned. Only lighting that falls within the Town code should be installed at a residence. Interesting side note: commercial buildings and educational institutions have different requirements set by the insurance industry, so while these properties often appear to be over-lit, they are not subject to the Town code.

So what should you do if you are in compliance with the Dark Sky code but your neighbor isn’t? Jeanine Goodwin (Cutchogue Civic Association) led a lively discussion about how to broach a neighbor about inappropriate lighting. "Put yourselves in their shoes, let them talk first." While talking is the most effective way of dealing with neighborhood issues, such conversations can be challenging and demand patience and understanding. More than one friendly conversation may be needed for your neighbor to alter their lighting approach. And if all else fails, a call to Town Hall to lodge a complaint might just do the trick.