As part of its plan to erect a new Temple, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proposed modifications to the Wasatch County Dark Sky Lighting ordinance. Wasatch County hired a Dark Skies consultant, Dr. John Barentine, to review the current county code and provide comprehensive recommendations. 

Notwithstanding the assuring words of Wasatch County Manager Dustin Grabau, “The highest priority that the council has is in protecting dark skies,” many were unconvinced. A concerned group of citizens, Save Wasatch Back Dark Skies Group (SWBDS) filed multiple GRAMA requests to obtain copies of the written analysis performed by Dr. Barentine. For over two months, despite numerous attempts, the group was denied access to the records.

On March 30, over 100 people attended the county planning commission meeting to express their support or displeasure with the proposed lighting code changes. With the planning commission in agreement to forward the matter to the County Council for a vote on April 5, SWBDS again attempted to obtain the details of Dr. Barentine’s analysis. Being told by the Wasatch County clerk/auditor that “there are no records responsive to your request,” the group attended the county council meeting without the details supporting the expert’s conclusions.      

Miraculously, one day after the council meeting, the GRAMA request was finally fulfilled.  As suspected:

1) The documents provide a stark contrast in recommendations compared to the county draft code amendment.

2) It appears that these documents were withheld with the intention of preventing them from influencing the public and committee perception of the consultant’s recommendations.

3) The lack of mention of these documents or the content at either meeting is extremely problematic. Since the county proposed amendment differs markedly from the “expert”, only two possible conclusions can be drawn. The committee members either did not know about the recommendations in the documents, or they knew about them and purposefully did not bring them up or ask Dr. Barentine about them during the meetings. 

Especially troublesome discrepancies include:

Citizens were led to believe that a limit of 25,000 lumens per developed acre was a reasonable amount of “lighting output.” This figure, however, is sharply higher than the amount recommended in the Barentine report (max. of 10,000 lumens for industrial areas, and lower elsewhere).  Since the proposed ordinance change excludes parking lot lighting, it is possible that the total lumens per developed acre could exceed the permissible amount by 10-fold. 

Dr. Barentine also recommended the use of lighting zones “as overlays on existing land use that scale lighting allowances with development density.”.This is crucial as the planned temple location is in a low-density residential neighborhood, necessitating a lower lumen count with no uplighting allowed in some zones.

Although not all inclusive, the last point to highlight is that Dr. Barentine’s proposal also applies to residential housing. The County code amendment, however, excludes residential and agricultural lots. 

Why keep folks in the dark? Will the county council rely on the expert and implement his recommendations as well as those forwarded by the planning commission? After all, Wasatch County Councilor Kendall Crittenden said, “The best way to remove the emotion from the decision is to rely on the experts,” and that Dr. Barentine is “probably the best consultant we could have in the whole United States.”

The post Guest editorial: Sunlight is the best disinfectant appeared first on Park Record.