In just two weeks, more than 30 Lopez homeowners responded to Fifth Grade students’ offer of free motion sensors and timers to reduce unnecessary outdoor night lighting and minimize its impacts on local wildlife.

“We’ve given away nearly a thousand dollars of light and energy saving devices on Lopez,” says project adviser Russel Barsh of Kwiaht.  “Now it’s time for our business community and community services to do their share.”

Barsh notes that more than a dozen buildings in Lopez Village have high-powered outdoor lights that burn from dusk until dawn.  No one is shopping most of that time, and there are few pedestrians in the Village after shops and restaurants close. The only reason for all-night lighting would be the belief that it deters crime.

However, Barsh says, most studies indicate that motion activated lights have at least as much of an effect on crime as lights that are left on all night, even in communities with much higher rates of nighttime assaults and burglaries than San Juan County.

Brightness and aim are also issues.  Most of the conspicuous lights in the Village could be half as bright (or less), and shielded so they only cast light downward, without a significant effect on visibility or safety, Barsh suggests: “Try it.”

As Juniper Blomberg’s owl says: “Use motion sensors or timers on outside lights.  It saves animals.”