Egg Harbor Lights the Way

Members of the Door Peninsula Astronomical Society refer to the city where they meet as “the Sturgeon Bay nebulae,” due to the bright lights that make Sturgeon Bay such a glaring nighttime presence.

“The shipyard is one of the worst offenders. They’re just awful over there and the shipyard in Marinette is even worse. It makes a bubble on the horizon on Marinette,” said Ray Stonecipher, whose titles with the astronomy society include “curator” and “inexhaustible resource.” The society’s meeting place, the Ray and Ruthie Stonecipher Astronomy Center, is named for him and his wife.

Stonecipher, a retired University of Wisconsin-Whitewater astronomy professor, is an advocate of the dark sky movement, which advocates reducing light pollution that blocks out the night sky.

Ten years ago Stonecipher gave a series of lectures on the dark sky idea for Door County communities.

“The one place it took was in Egg Harbor, primarily because of Nancy Fisher,” Stonecipher said.

Fisher served on the village board from 2004 to 2013, and as president of the board the last six of those years, and came to the job with a background in lighting.

“So, consequently, I was really offended by the blue fixtures here,” she said, referring to the former blue lamp stands and globular glass balls that contained the high-pressure sodium lights and that also tended to collect bugs and water.

A single blue lamp remains at the corner of Highway 42 and County E, in front of Trio Restaurant, but it’s coming down soon.

“It looks so obnoxious,” Fisher said.

The yellowish glow cast by the remaining blue light is a stark difference from the subtle white, downcast metal halide lighting that now softly illuminates Egg Harbor after a process that began in 2007 and resulted in a lighting ordinance approved in June 2008 that embraced the dark sky movement.

“We started phasing it in and then just wrapped it up for the budget in 2013. This was the big reveal year,” Fisher said. “We had been fortunate enough to have construction projects that needed outdoor light, both along Church Street and the Marina.”

“The pieces we had were fading,” Village Administrator Josh Van Lieshout said of the old lights. “They had this chalky look about them. They were 20, 25 years old. Every now and then something was smashed and we’d have to find replacement parts. In my opinion, the village board was on this track where they wanted to make improvements to this community. The details are important. Having chalky, outdated fixtures, with globes half-filled with water and bugs, just wasn’t the presentation we wanted to give our residents and visitors. That was part of improving our corridor.”

Fisher credited late Door County Parks Director George Pinney for setting the standard for cutoff lighting at Pinney Park (formerly Olde Stone Quarry Park).

“People noticed that lighting because it was one of the first instances where the right lighting decisions had been made, keeping the light directed down,” Fisher said. “You shouldn’t be stabbed in the eyeball with light. It should all be directed down in a useful way.”

The village followed Pinney’s lead by working with Architectural Area Lighting of La Mirada, Calif.

“We talked to George about his experience with that company. Ultimately, that’s the manufacturer we went with,” Fisher said.

“The village board did this for not a lot of money, when you think of what we have. It’s not a million dollar project. It’s much, much, much less than that,” Van Lieshout said.

Van Lieshout and the Village Public Works Department led by Jeff Meyer helped keep the costs down by repurposing the existing bases.

“It took a little work. We had to go do some structural calculations,” Van Lieshout said. “That worked out. We had to create some adapters. We had a three-bolt base and had to go to a four-bolt base. We went to a machine shop in Sturgeon Bay and had them make big circles of plate steel. Our crew was then able to modify those, cut them with a torch and drive another anchor.”

“That was key to overall costs,” Fisher said.

Another factor in keeping costs down is that with the more efficient lighting, the village did not have to do a one-for-one replacement of streetlights. In most cases it was one new light for every two old lights.

“I want to see what happens to our electric bill,” Van Lieshout said. “Our street lighting bill alone is about $12,000. Simply taking out every other light, putting in a more efficient fixture, a directional fixture, we’ll cut our bill substantially. We’re on photocells. We used to be on timers. The timers that we had were very challenging and they failed a lot. The photocell works well. It’s pretty easy to correct if it fails.”

Ultimately, Fisher said, the updated lighting is part of the overall plan to attract and retain visitors and residents to the village.

“We want to keep people here,” she said. “We want them to stroll around and stay for dinner. With our public art and performances at Peg Egan, we want them to stay here and linger, and eventually buy a house and pay property taxes.”

Van Lieshout said the lighting scheme is working.

“People really like it,” he said. “Normally you get the calls when somebody’s street light burns out or it’s glaring in their window. I’ve had calls that say, ‘Gosh, I really like the new lights. It’s not so bright and glaring anymore. Good job.’”