Battle Ground is on track to become a clearer home for stargazers.
The city council signaled its support for requiring Dark Sky-compliant lighting in new developments during its Monday, March 17, meeting, though replacing existing streetlights will depend on grant funding.
Mark Herceg, the city’s public works director, presented Dark Sky technology, explaining that Dark Sky communities aim to reduce light pollution through focused lighting ordinances and public education.
“A dark sky community is a town, city or other legally organized area that actively works to preserve the night sky by implementing and enforcing strict outdoor lighting ordinances, educating residents about light pollution, and fostering widespread community support for dark skies,” Herceg said.
Battle Ground has approximately 3,500 streetlights. Herceg outlined that the city’s existing cobra-head streetlights are already compliant with Dark Sky standards, though additional shielding could be offered upon request.
“For our existing street light ... cover heads, (for) example over here on Scotton (Way), those are already compliant as the light shines down on the street,” he said. “To meet the platinum standard of dark skies, we have to offer shields.”
For the city’s acorn-style streetlights, no easy retrofit option exists. Replacing them with compliant fixtures would cost approximately $1,350 per fixture, plus $84 for shields.
“For an acorn, they’re not compliant and there is no retrofit,” Herceg explained. “You have to have a new fixture.”
While council members supported including Dark Sky standards in new developments, several expressed hesitation about investing in replacing existing lights without financial assistance.
“For existing lights, you would have to look for grants ... that would be my recommendation,” Herceg said.
“I like the idea of doing them as we go with the new developments and new standards, and then look and see if we can get grants and stuff to fix some of the older ones,” she said.
The discussion also included smart streetlight technology, which allows lights to adjust brightness based on motion and integrates features such as traffic monitoring and emergency route guidance. Some smart lighting systems require cellular subscriptions, while others could potentially integrate with Clark Public Utilities’ (CPU) planned radio communication network. Herceg estimates working with CPU would cost the city $35,000 a year, $10,000 less than building their own network.
“I would recommend waiting until CPU builds out their communication network,” Herceg said. “It’s gonna be far cheaper to work with them than try to build our own.”
Mayor Troy McCoy emphasized the need for a cost-effective approach.
“I see two different things here, and I’m not really interested in a huge capital project or a huge capital spend. For me, what I see is we currently have lights that we’re using, the acorns, that they’re not compliant. So simply, we could change that standard for no cost, require developers to use the Dark Sky standard for no cost.”
Others raised concerns about aligning with county-wide standards and whether CPU would support the transition.
“It to me, unless the county and CPU is talking about doing this as an overhaul for engineering and they could support that, I don’t know if it makes necessary sense to me overall,” Councilmember Eric Overholser said.
Council consensus leaned toward changing the standard for new developments while continuing to explore grant opportunities for retrofitting existing acorn streetlights. Herceg will follow up with CPU on potential maintenance agreements and report back to the council.
