When communities lose sight of the stars, Christopher Cokinos said they lose one of the few reference points shared by all of humanity.
“We all see clouds, we all see the sun, we all see the moon and we all see the stars,” the writer, poet, backyard astronomer, and former Utah State University professor said. “And if we lose the night sky, we’re losing our connection to the wider cosmos. … If we lose that, then all we have is a glow in the sky that washes everything out.”
Kathe Lison, herself a writer and designer, agreed.
“It’s the heavens,” she said.
So a few years ago, when the lights shining into the married couple’s back yard from the nearby Logan High School were made brighter, Cokinos and Lison began reaching out to others to see if they, too, were concerned about the community’s nocturnal illumination.
Along with experienced dark sky advocate Lisa Stoner and Bridgerland Audubon Society President Hilary Shughart, the couple started the Cache Valley Starlight Alliance.
Last month, the group held an introductory meeting at the Logan Library. When over 30 people attended, Lison said the meeting showed that the night sky that hangs over people’s heads also sits on their minds. The attendees, according to Cokinos, ranged from college students to retirees.
Through working collaboratively with different cities, groups, and residents, the group hopes they can dim the valley’s lights and restore the night sky, though they face the challenges of ensuring community support and navigating bureaucratic obstacles.
Already, the team has begun speaking with leaders in Logan City School District and Logan City about refining and enforcing the area’s existing lighting code. Not wanting to work against anybody, they are also determined to make their endeavor a community-centered push, rather than a combative effort.
According to Logan spokesperson George Woodward, the general plan the city is currently weighing calls for reviewing how the city can update its lighting code.
Frank Schofield, Logan City School District’s superintendent, gave a presentation during an April 28 school board meeting in which he discussed how the district could reposition lights to minimize skyglow.
“People are talking about this, and we just have to widen that circle of conversation,” Cokinos said.
Cokinos and Lison hope more people will join the alliance’s cause as they illustrate the benefits of a dark night sky. According to them, not only would it safeguard a view of the cosmos for future generations, but would also benefit the community in other ways. Light pollution, according to the alliance and other professionals, deters pollinators from helping plants reproduce, disrupts wildlife’s natural patterns, creates potential hazards on the road, and disturbs peoples’ sleep.
Concern over dark skies has been seen in other areas around Utah.
After The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints asked Wasatch County to loosen its dark sky regulations in 2022, people around Heber Valley sounded alarms over what the loss of light rules could do to their sky.
Eventually, the county did adjust the rules, though the church had to dim its initial lighting plans.
Astronomical successes
Christian Luginbuhl, the president of Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition in Arizona, said in recent years, he has been hearing from more and more communities that see the stars disappear from their night skies — and want them back.
Luginbuhl said the community’s push to shield its dark skies originated to safeguard astronomical research.
In 1958, he said, Flagstaff passed an ordinance to ban sweeping searchlights for advertising — the first codified night-sky protection in the world, so far as Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition has been able to determine.
Throughout the years, Luginbuhl said the preservation effort has required updates, new regulations and continued community support to keep the skies dark as the city’s grown to more than 75,000 people.
He said that places like Cache Valley can follow the standards Flagstaff flagshipped to achieve a night sky not saturated with polluted glow.
If people and cities in the community want a tough yet motivating goal in their efforts to uncover the galaxies, Luginbuhl said there are three things they can do to unlock a view of the Milky Way galaxy — a treat he said is worth the effort:
- Use amber lighting rather than blue lights.
- Shield outdoor light so it shines only where intended.
- Don’t use more lights than needed.
These three steps, he said, can reduce the sky’s brightness by about 90%.
The challenge, however, lies not only in setting and enforcing reasonable outdoor lighting regulations, but also in making sure that people in the community support them.
As he became personally involved in safeguarding the night sky in the ’80s, Luginbuhl said he realized that, to him, protecting the darkness was important for reasons beyond scientific research.
“Just being able to look at a sky filled with stars was important to me,” he said. “... You’re standing on the edge of Grand Canyon, if you’ve had the luck to be able to do that, and you don’t sit there and say, ‘Wow, that’s just great they preserved that so the geologists can do their work.’ That’s not why we preserve Grand Canyon.”
The night-sky preservation efforts, he added, would have been all but impossible without a strong launchpad of community support.
“If it’s just a handful of astronomers … then nothing much is going to happen,” he said. “Even if you do adopt a lighting code — the impetus, the support, the motivation is not there.”
As the Cache Valley Starlight Alliance begins approaching community leaders and searching through cities’ ordinances to see what lighting codes already exist, Cokinos and Lison are well aware of the need to garner the broader community’s support.
Reach for the sky
Building that buy-in, however, could be an uphill battle.
Though the group has started making progress with some community leaders in Logan, the valley is made up of 19 cities, each with their own decision-making councils, as well as the county government, which dictates code for unincorporated land.
Stoner, one of the alliance’s founding members, said if the group can begin with focusing on Logan, other localities may follow the county seat’s example.
“Those folks that live in smaller towns may not realize what’s happening right now, but Utah is one of the fastest growing states in the country,” she said. “... You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.”
Because one city’s light pollution will affect adjacent cities’ ability to see the night sky, Luginbuhl said it could present a challenge to the alliance as they seek to once again speckle the horizon with stars.
Still, he added, isolated cities could see some benefits of reducing artificial light, and working with many governments might even prove an advantage for the alliance.
“Out of a dozen communities, [it] seems likely you ought to be able to find somebody who’s amenable,” he said. “And if somebody can make the first step, that can help to, I think, get the process going.”
The Cache Valley Starlight Alliance has already begun planning their next moves, coordinating with people willing to examine municipal codes and working to spread their message. They hope the community will see the effectiveness of shielding requirements, amber lights and not using unnecessary lighting.
“When I’ve done my local presentations and tabling and things, I say, ‘How long have you been here, and do you remember when we could see the Milky Way right from our own backyards?’” Stoner said. “... They do remember seeing that, but their kids can’t, and that’s heartbreaking for many, and that’s kind of our mission of the Cache Valley Starlight Alliance, is let the kids see the stars.”