February 1999  New Hampshire Citizens for Responsible Lighting
Newsletter # 5


In this issue:



NHCRL membership passes 80 / thanks to Sky and Telescope.
The NH outdoor lighting bill nears rewrite completion.
Senators and Representatives co-sponsor our bill.
Governors office takes and interest in our bill.
NHCRL speaks at Hillsboro highway by-pass public forum.
NHCRL will meet with the Manchester Planning Board this week.
NHCRL web page greatly expanded.
Do motion detectors make a difference?

>>> NHCRL membership passes 80 / thanks Sky and Telescope

As of Feb 2, NHCRL membership has increased to 83. Sky and Telescope magazine ran a same informational piece on NHCRL, and interest in the group has increased both locally and outside the state. Thanks Sky Publishing!

>>> The NH outdoor lighting bill nears rewrite completion.

The NH 1999 legislature starts session in the next month or so, all bills submitted for this year will be out of rewrite by the end of January and assigned to a committee for review. When the text of the revised bill is available we will publish it to our members. We would like to remind members that when the bill is brought up a committee having 'people' there to talk in favor of it will give the bill a much better chance of making it out of committee. If members cannot be present during the 1/2 hour our bill will be given, then writing a letter to the committee chair that we can submit at the hearing time would also be a great help. Once the committee is assigned and the chair set we will publish the committee chairmans name so our members can start writing.

>>> Senators and Representatives co-sponsor our bill.

Each of the co-sponsors was approached by an NHCRL members and asked to co-sponsor our bill. Some were very excited that 'someone' was addressing the outdoor lighting issue. We are limited to 5 reps and 5 senators to co-sponsor the bill, and had more reps signed up than could be added to the co-sponsorship. These reps have said they will give us further support when the bill comes up at the capitol!

Our bill, 1999-H-0328-R

Title: Relative to outdoor light.

Sponsors:

(Prime)Eugene L Gagnon  - r     - rep   - Manchester

Robert F Chabot         - r     - rep   - Manchester
Dennis H Fields         - r     - rep   - Merrimack
Winston H McCarty       - r     - rep   - Manchester
Martha Fuller Clark     - d     - rep   - Portsmouth

Burton Cohen            - d     - senate - Newcastle
Sylvia Larsen           - d     - senate - Concord
Richard Russman         - r     - senate - Kingston
Katherine Wheeler       - d     - senate - Durham

The governors office has requested information on the NHCRL bill, besides the big education thing this year, the governors office is interested in urban sprawl. Since light pollution is part of urban sprawl, we pointed out that it should be addressed as part of an over all package, further information will be available as this contact is developed.

>>> NHCRL speaks at Hillsboro highway by-pass public forum.

The New Hampshire Astronomical Society requested the NHCRL attend the highway by-pass public informational meeting held last week in Hillsboro to insure the by-pass lighting would not interfere with their observatory. The state highway project manager was very interested in looking into lighting changes for full-cutoff lighting. At one point a citizen of Hillsboro requested 'all' the state owned lights in the town be switched over to full cut-off. Although we doubt the state will be willing to replace all of their lights, we think the new highway may have the proper lighting to preserve the NHAS observatory.

>>> NHCRL will meet with the Manchester Planning Board this week.

The Manchester Planning Board heard a presentation from NHCRL in November, they decide to set up a study committee, which has been slow in getting started. NHCRL will meet with the study committee on Feb 4 to discuss light pollution and solutions.

>>> NHCRL web page greatly expanded.

Thanks to Larry Lopez and Barbara O'Connel for revising the NHCRL web page to include back issues of newsletters and our handouts in a printable format. These changes were implemented on Feb 2, please take a look at the back issues if you joined the group recently.

The NHCRL web page is at http://www.mv.com/users/lopez/nhcrl/

Here are the additions:

NEWSLETTERS

NHCRL Newsletter #1-October '98

NHCRL Newsletter #2-November '98

NHCRL Newsletter #3-December '98

NH_law-REVISED_again_and_again-12-Dec-98.v2.html

NHCRL Newsletter #4-January '99

DOWNLOADABLE PUBLICATIONS

out-lite.pdf Good Neighbor Outdoor Lighting Documentation in PDF format (45 KB)

out-lite.doc Good Neighbor Outdoor Lighting Documentation in DOC format (117 KB)

out-lite.bmp Good Neighbor Outdoor Lighting Documentation in BMP format (815 KB)

NHCRL.pdf NHCRL sign-up and information hand-out in PDF format (8 KB)

NHCRL.doc NHCRL sign-up and information hand-out in DOC format (26 KB)

NHCRL.bmp NHCRL sign-up and information hand-out in BMP format (967 KB)

>>> Do motion sensors make a difference?

Mike PelIetier did some research on the motion detector question . He looked in the web and consulted with PSNH. An electric light takes an extremely minimal amount of electricity to turn on or off. George Abood of PSNH (634-3536) is an advisor on consumer issues and helped out on a few questions and calculations. He said that the amount of energy needed to start up a light, such as a motion detector would do, is minimal and a fraction of a watt. The motion detector would have to be nearly constantly turning the light on and off to equal the power used by a light that was always on. For example: a 150 Watt flood light on constantly versus on a motion detector 150 Watts times 8 hours a day equals 1200 Watts equals 1.2 Kilowatts (KW) 1.2 KW times 30 days a month equals 36 KW per month 36 KW times $0.13 per KW equals $4.68

With 6 flood lights on the home:

6 times $4.68 equals $28.08 per month or times 12 equals $336.96 per year

With a motion detector, assume at worse, it is on for 1 hour a night and therefore uses 96 Watts per day.

$336.96 divided by 8 equals $42.12/year for 6 lights.

The motion detector itself uses a maximum of 4 watts per hour so, 4W times 24 (hours) equals 96 watts/day/light or 576 watts/day

for individual 6 lights. 576 times $0.13/day equals 7.5 cents a day or $0.075 times 365 equals $27.37/year for 6 lights $27.37 (motion detector) plus $42.12 (light useage) equals $69.49/year

$336.96 minus $69.49 equals a savings of $267.47 per year by using motion detectors. This is an 80 per cent cost savings!

not to mention the happy trees and animals outside at light.

If the lighting wattage was reduced to a 100 Watt light, the user would still save $176 a year.

_________________________________________ 
Mike Stebbins                 nhas@compuserve.com
NH Citizens for Responsible Lighting