Orange County NC Website
' DRAFT pots <br />2 "Duke's interest in this is to make sure that the Ordinance is simple followed which wit <br />1 ao <br />3 equate to compliance, which will equate to effectiveness. And to that end, and to the intent~of <br />4 trying to limit fight trespass, the remarks that we have provided are geared. Let me just say a <br />5 couple of things because I appreciated the preceding speakers. <br />6 <br />7 "The first thing is that part of my business is to look at lights all the time whenever I m <br />8 riding down the road so I know how everybody feels when you start thinking about things and <br />9 you start looking up. And I do se t the O dinantce can address thalt.g problems. And it is relatively <br />10 simple to fix them. And I think tha <br />11 <br />12 "The other thing that 1 want to mention because I found some common ground. I live m <br />13 rural Alamance County, not far from what is called "Three College Observatory." I've beer} up <br />14 there a couple of times with my children to observe the heavens, and the light pollution is a <br />~15 problem. It is getting worse, especially on a foggy night. The moisture in the air does cause a <br />16 problem. And if you go out and look, you'll probably notice that some of the greatest ottou ook at <br />17 unfortunately, are governmental agencies. You look at the highway lighting down 185, y <br />18 the lighting over different municipalities. And it is going to be a tough issue to tackle unless <br />19 municipalities and govemmental lighting is included. And, again, I applaud Orange County <br />20 because, based on my interpretation of the Ordinance, that has not been ignored. So, t think that <br />21 is a good step. <br />22 <br />23 "I mentioned seven things in the memo that was sent, which I will not go over again <br />24 because you've got them with you tonight, but I just wanted to make a couple of mentions of a <br />25 couple of highlights. <br />26 <br />27 "One is the Section 631.5, which refers to the submittal of plans and designs for lighting <br />28 applications. This is of concern to Duke Power from the standpoint that, due to the volume of <br />29 lighting and everything, it is going to be challenging for everything to be submitted and reviewed. <br />30 I'm not saying it cannot be done, but the burden of the submittal and the approval process will fall <br />31 upon the requesting party. And it would be up to a public utility like Duke Power to, we'd have to <br />32 have that Dome in hand from the requesting party to us. That is not a service that could be <br />33 performed under the current rate structure. So that translates into extra cost to a requesting <br />34 party to have that submitted. and brought to us, something that as approvable. Again, I don't think <br />35 that, I know that Duke Power does not have a position on that. We are just making everybody <br />36 aware that that is a direct action of the Ordinance that will take place. <br />37 <br />38 "A lot of lights that Duke Power puts in are situations where there is a fanner or <br />39 somebody that has a convenience store or just somebody's got their own home, wants a light <br />40 installed. Duke Power supplies lights under the North Carolina Utility Commission, which <br />41 approves the I'rght selection that is installed. And, currently, the guidelines we follow to put the <br />42 lights up are fairly straight forward and our desire is that they remain so under the Ordinance. <br />43 . <br />qq. 'The simplest way to do that is to make the foundational Ordinance the requirement of <br />45 cut-off fixtures, which I think would probably address 90 percent of the fight pollution, light <br />46 trespass problem that we see today. The biggest irritant is the point source of light that you see <br />47 when you are outside looking at the light, and that light is not directed on the surface, it's directed <br />48 out, and even a relatively small light from a distance will be an irritant just because of that point <br />49 source that you can see.. A cut-off fixture would address that and it is something very simple to <br />50 do. <br />51 <br />