Avista’s streetlight ‘upgrade’ is a downgrade for night skies

If you hadn’t heard yet, our local utility company, Avista, is in the process of installing hundreds of blue-white LED streetlights in the Spokane area. These lights are, for the most part, far brighter than they need to be. To make matters worse, the lights are on the blue side of the spectrum which is terrible for dark-adaptation. What can we do?

  1. Research! Here’s a couple of recent articles and news stories about the issue:
    • http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2015/oct/25/doug-clark-the-livin-is-easy-under-avistas-new-str/
    • http://www.kxly.com/news/spokane-news/new-led-street-lights-get-mixed-reviews/35976920
    • http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2015/oct/20/new-led-streetlights-are-green-but-have-some-spoka/
  2. Let the your city council rep know what you think.
    • https://my.spokanecity.org/citycouncil/members/
    • Phone:509.625.6255
  3. Let Avista know what you think
    • https://www.avistautilities.com/contact/_layouts/avista/contactus.aspx

If enough of us voice our opinion (respectfully!) there’s no doubt in my mind we can make a difference here.