Remember walking out on dark nights and seeing the Milky Way spread across the soft midnight sky?
Tom Adkins does. He was a child in Rossville, Ga. But those days are gone.
Now, even in Hixson, miles away from downtown Chattanooga's spreading lights, Mr. Adkins still can't see the Milky Way. Instead he sees the moon, a few bright planets and urban glow.
Mr. Adkins, an amateur astronomer, and Bobby Thompson, acting director of UTC's Clarence T. Jones Observatory, believe growth and dark skies can be compatible neighbors. And they'd like to see Chattanooga -- which has billed itself as an environmental city -- light the way. Or, maybe, relight the way.
Perhaps some statistics about the situation would be illuminating.
In the Chattanooga area, there are 50,000 street lights, up 10,000 from just nine years ago, according to Electric Power Board spokeswoman Alison Lebovitz. Some 8,000 of those new lights are privately owned. The rest are publicly owned. And the lights come in 15 or 20 different types and sizes.
But most are neither sky-viewer friendly nor efficient, said Mr. Thompson and Mr. Adkins.
About as much of that light goes up as goes down, Mr. Thompson said. But no one needs it to go up. The trouble is that it doesn't just get lost.
What happens to all that upward beaming light is what's known as urban glow. Several thousand feet up in the air is an inversion layer of dust and moisture. It catches and reflects all that leftover light back toward the ground.
Anything dimmer than the brightest planets and the moonglow is lost in the background.
The Milky Way is still there, it's just lost in the haze. Finding it requires driving a minimum of 15 to 20 miles away from the city.
"But the problem can be solved," said Mr. Adkins, "with better designed and more efficient fixtures that direct light down, not up."
Stargazers including Mr. Adkins and Mr. Thompson want government help.
Mr. Adkins asked the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to put light pollution into its new 10-year plan. And Mr. Thompson wants citizens to call their city council representatives.
"We're supposed to control all the commercial lights and private lights?" City Public Works Administrator Jack Marcellis asked.
"We need intelligent use of light, and it seems we need building codes and ordinances by our lawmakers to control this waste of money and energy and unsafe use of light," was Mr. Thompson's response.
There are many states and large cities with laws that control lighting, Mr. Thompson said, just as they control signs.
Chattanooga Councilman Dave Crockett agreed, but not before joking that if Chattanooga turned its lights down, he'd lose his excuse to go to Montana to see the sky.
"That is something some cities have looked at, and it's a real issue, particularly around commercial areas where they put the poles up so high,' he said. "It's worth looking at, I guess. If we're going to reduce zoning conflicts and move toward mixed-use communities, there are a lot of things that have to changed about the way we build things. Things have to be more compatible, especially in signage and lighting."
Mr. Adkins said the old street lamps were designed for freeways and major roads in the 1960s when electricity was cheap and convenience, not effect, was the driving design consideration.
Designs are better now, but refits of existing infrastructure have moved more slowly.
Newer mall developers are catching on, he said. And TVA, where Mr. Adkins works, has instituted a program of using full cutoff lighting -- fixtures with covers and sides to direct all the light downward -- at its facilities.
"One argument of it is just the economics," he said. "We found we could produce the same effect with a lesser amount of electricity."
Mr. Thompson said other thieves of night are commercial firms -- including convenience stores, fast-food restaurants and banks -- that seem to use lights more as advertising than for safety.
But he is quick to praise sky-friendly businesses who voluntarily have been thoughtful about outdoor lighting. He named the Tennessee Valley Authority, Long Pontiac, Blue Bird Bus Corp., Memorial Hospital and Walgreens as good light neighbors.
"We're missing the splendor of the sky," Mr. Adkins said. "We can see the brighter stars and moon because they're just bright enough to shine through the haze. But we miss the majesty of the sky that, throughout human history, people have been amazed at and inspired by."
For more information about glareless lighting, the men suggest looking at the Web page of the International Dark Sky Association. The site is www.darksky.org.
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