[AZ-Observing] Bylas, AZ lighting along US 70
- From: Kerry Weatherford <ancient_light@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: AZ-Observing <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 22:47:53 -0700
A couple weeks ago I sent a message to Frank Kraljic, who then forwarded
it to Tom Polakis.� The message was regarding the lighting through the
small reservation town of Bylas, AZ along US Highway 70.� Tom had
mentioned that he too had seen it sometime last year when driving
through that area, however no one seemed to know the story behind it.�
For those of you unfamiliar with Bylas, it's a small rural community on
the San Carlos Indian Reservation along US Highway 70 between Safford &
Globe.� The highway is literally lined with road lamps on both sides,
spaced about 75 yards apart for at least two miles, which are designed
with a rather large 90* arc so they come up like a canopy over the
roadway.� Quite a sight.
After much internet research of lighting ordinance documents for US 70 &
Bylas, reservation documents, and even papers about the ongoing feud
between the San Carlos Apache tribe & the government on the Mt. Graham
observatory issues, I came up empty-handed.� Nothing mentioned the
extreme density of the highway lighting through the town, or the
specific project.� I tried an old AZ geography professor of mine at ASU,
however he retired a couple years ago & I was unable to speak with him.�
So I called the Safford District ADOT office and was able to talk to
someone who has worked there for 20+ years.� Unfortunately none of the
engineers were available, so the info relayed to me does not contain any
of the scientific specs and arguments about the design, but only the
history of the incident.� So here's a brief account of the story:
To this person's knowledge, the lighting has been in place for 3-5 years
(yes that's quite a margin!), and there are 200+ lights along the
highway in that area, although no one seems to know the exact number
without having to sift through the records.� I would call 200+ an
absolute minimum count.� According to ADOT, the wheels began spinning on
this project well before the Mt. Graham incident, and it is part of the
ICE-T federal grant monies for rural community "enhancement".� The
design engineer assigned to the project actually had a background in
urban lighting development, and somehow "over-lit" the area well beyond
the original intent of the Bylas citizens, but maintained & won his
arguments for leaving it that way.� Also, the Apache Tribe decided they
liked that much lighting because of the heavy pedestrian traffic that
constantly crosses the highway between the parts of town separated by US
70.� Apparently there's quite a bit of foot-traffic at night.�
Hmmm............
The other part is that the San Carlos Tribe was supposed to maintain all
of the lights & equipment that was installed, but since the equipment is
sophisticated & expensive, they could not keep up with the maintenance
costs.� Therefore ADOT was forced to re-acquire the lights and absorb
the repair costs, which subsequently translates into "you & I pay now
pay for this light pollution!"
The fixtures appear to be full-cutoff, however since I didn't pass
through at night, I don't know if the lights are high-pressure or
low-pressure Sodium lights, or something else altogether.� It would be
interesting to find out what kind of effect this has on the sky since
the density of the lamps is so ridiculously high.� I would think there
would still be much more than normal surface reflection, even despite
the asphalt & surrounding dirt areas.� If anyone has any other ideas
about the effects of this on visual magnitude in the area I'd be very
interested to hear.� Just thought since this has come up a couple times
on this group I would post as much as I was able to find on the subject.
-Kerry Weatherford
�
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