SEQUIM — Let there be light, this city says — just cut it off before it spills into the night sky.
Thanks to what’s known as Sequim’s Dark Skies resolution, three new construction projects in Sequim are to have street lamps that do not contribute to light pollution.
Unlike the traditional Nevada-style fixtures with up-shining auras, these lights are Eurotech brand “full cutoff” lights that wear funnel-shaped hoods over their bulbs.
The three sites where they’re being installed are the International House of Pancakes, under construction in the shopping center just west of Walmart; the new Jamestown Medical Clinic rising behind Olympic Medical Cancer Center on Fifth Avenue; and the city’s second community garden on Spruce Street.
Each of the projects meets a city requirement for nonpolluting lights, said associate planner Joe Irvin, one of the authors of the Dark Skies resolution of 2008.
Another proponent of street lights that don’t detract from the moon and stars is Pat Clark, the retired Teamsters union negotiator who worked on this issue with Sequim officials for more than three years.
He spoke about light pollution at City Council meetings. He furnished council members with published research about its ill effects on human health.
And Clark, always displaying a sunny attitude, ultimately got the resolution passed.
As anyone who’s driven through town knows, lots of shopping and housing tracts had already put up the old-style bright lights. Clark had to accept that. But on a recent day, he asked Irvin how the newer projects could be fitted with full-cutoff lamps.
Irvin gave him the good news: The city required both the Jamestown Medical Clinic and IHOP to use the nonpolluting type.
And for its own park on Spruce Street — the June Robinson Memorial Park — Irvin said the city is ordering a Eurotech lamp.
So last week, Clark basked in the small victory — and went back to the City Council to draw the members’ attention to the three steps forward.
“If you want to go look at a real nice light — that’s not turned on, which makes it even better,” stop by the restaurant or clinic construction sites, Clark said.
The IHOP, at 1400 W. Washington St., could turn its lights on and start serving pancakes as soon as March, owner Mohammad Khadar of Lynnwood has predicted.
The June Robinson park, a public space with a lawn for picnicking, relaxing and dog-walking plus 24 community garden plots available for rent to Sequim area residents, will receive its light some time this spring.
At the Jamestown Medical Clinic, a 35,000-square-foot complex taking shape behind Olympic Medical Center’s campus at 844 N. Fifth Ave., the full-cutoff street lamps will be overshadowed by a 25-foot-tall totem pole designed by the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe’s master carver, Dale Faulstich.
The clinic, which will replace the much smaller facility at 777 N. Fifth Ave., is expected to open in mid-June.
________
Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
