Durham residents say new LED lights give ‘perpetual daylight.’ What are the solutions?

Updated at 4:50 p.m. Nov. 5, 2020.

When Durham City Council members switched thousands of street lights to energy-efficient bulbs, they were thinking about the environment and public safety.

But some residents say the new lights are so bright, it’s like they’re living in a parking garage.

After hundreds of complaints, the council received an update Thursday on the conversion project and some possible solutions.

Residents can appeal to the city’s transportation department to remove a streetlight, said Bill Judge, assistant director of the department.

They can also ask the city to reduce the streetlight’s wattage or install a shield, though some processes require support from the Durham Police Department.

City resident Tom Feltner told the council at a Sept. 21 meeting that the LED lights have had “a profound negative impact” on him.

“It’s unshielded. It’s unfocused. It’s far too bright,” Feltner said. “And the result has been our home is now what some neighbors have called perpetual daylight, a movie set or football stadium.”

The lights’ glare has disrupted his sleep, he said.

“Even sitting in our living room has meant that we’ve had to cover a lot of our front windows with cardboard,” he said.

City-wide conversion project

Durham began converting roughly 21,000 street lights from high pressure Sodium (HPS) bulbs, which produce a warm, orange glow, to light-emitting diode (LED) fixtures in June 2019.

Duke Energy Carolinas owns and operates all 21,000 lights, for which the city pays a monthly fee.

The company started swapping in LED bulbs in Northeast Durham in June 2019. It moved south, then west, aiming to finish the project in November of this year, in neighborhoods just north of downtown.

City Council members had unanimously approved the project last April, partly because LED lights use less electricity. The transportation department had estimated the conversion would reduce Durham’s carbon dioxide emissions by 4.4 million tons a year.

Converting to LED does not save Durham money, Judge said.

Duke Energy’s monthly fee for running the LED lights is roughly 1% higher than it was for HPS bulbs, and the project’s one-time cost is $1.22 million.

Complaints from residents

The city has received 211 complaints about the new lights.

Most involve the lights’ brightness, “harsh” color temperature, and glare shining onto homes, according to a presentation by Judge.

Over 14 months the department received 50 to 60 complaints, from neighborhoods all across Durham, Judge said.

But in September, complaints from residents in Trinity Park, Duke Park, Watts-Hillandale, and other nearby neighborhoods spiked, he said.

“A lot of them do have front porches that were closer to the street,” Judge said in an interview with The News & Observer.

The issue led Mayor Steve Schewel to write a 1,000 word email to residents in October to explain the city’s rationale for the new lighting.

In the letter, he wrote the cost of changing back all of the lights “would be prohibitive” and that the LED lights were “making a real difference in terms of our energy consumption,”

Safety concerns had also compelled the city to make the change, he added.

“At the time we were considering the new lights, we were also informed that they provided improved night-time visibility,” he wrote. “Over my years on the council, and as mayor, I have heard from many people — especially in neighborhoods which experience significant gun violence — that they want improved night-time visibility which these lights could provide.”

What solutions exist for residents?

The LED fixtures direct light down, not up, in order to reduce night-sky light pollution, Judge said.

This can cast glare through a house’s windows. To combat this, the transportation department may send Duke Energy to investigate and possibly install a shield on the lamps, he said.

The city covers the expense, which could be $89 or $188, depending on the bulb.

“So that’s why we won’t want to put a shield on all 21,000 lights if we only need 200 of them,” he told The N&O.

In regard to complaints about the bulbs’ lighting level, the city could change the LED light from a 150 watt to a 50 watt bulb, Judge said.

To do so, the transportation department must confer with the Police Department, as part of Durham’s Brighten Our Streets policy. Established in 1997, the policy gives police the authority to determine lighting levels in certain areas in order to reduce crime.

If police show support, then the city notifies nearby residents and gives them three weeks to comment. If most residents agree to the change, the transportation department will decrease the wattage.

The cost to the city for changing a light’s wattage is $144, according to Judge’s presentation.

The process of removing a streetlight is similar to that of reducing its wattage, Judge said. Residents must write a request to the transportation department, then wait for police to determine whether taking out a light is possible.

Afterward, the city would send postcards to residents to ask whether they want to take a stance on removing or keeping a streetlight on their block.

“So basically, if a majority of the residents indicate that they want the light to remain, then we would not remove it,” Judge said.

Because the city has already changed nearly all of Duke Energy’s street lights, the cost to replace them again would be about $3.17 million, Judge said.

“I don’t think it benefits us to spend the millions of dollars listed in this presentation, especially in our current budget situation,” said Council member Javiera Caballero.

Concerns with brightness and health

Mary Yordy, a Duke Park resident, said she doesn’t object to more economical, environmentally sound lighting. Rather, she opposes the brightness of the LED lights Durham uses.

“The streets do not have to be lit up like the grounds of a penitentiary or the ball park,” she said in an email to The N&O.

Duke Energy uses 4,000 kelvin bulbs for Durham’s street lights, an “industry standard,” according to Schewel.

However, light bulbs above 3,000 kelvins are potentially harmful to human health and wildlife, according to a 2016 report by the American Medical Association.

The blue-rich light emitted by bright, LED streetlamps are associated with “reduced sleep times, dissatisfaction with sleep quality, excessive sleepiness, impaired daytime functioning and obesity,” according to a news release by the AMA

Council members comment on complaints

Council member Mark-Anthony Middleton said he stood by his apology to residents that felt impacted by the LED lights, but he had heard praise for the new lighting as well.

“There are some communities that welcomed them,” Middleton said. “That’s not to minimize those who were complaining, but I don’t want to create the impression that there is universal hatred for the lights.”

Caballero wants the city to change its policy, she said.

“For me, you know, the whole idea of a dark city sky is really appealing. And as we move forward, light pollution is real,” she said.

“I know there’s a lot of folks who would counter, ‘well, look at the crime rate,’” she added. “And so there would be some deeper digging that needs to happen.

Mayor Pro Tem Jillian Johnson said the city should continue to follow-up on the complaints as it gets them.

“I think a complaint rate of 1% for this kind of major change is actually not terrible,” Johnson said.

Johnson likes the bright street lights, she said. Council member DeDreana Freeman nodded and raised her hand to agree.

“I hope my neighbors don’t want to take out my street light,” she said, laughing. “We might have to have a little conversation about that over on my street here.”

This story was originally published November 5, 2020 at 5:50 AM with the headline "Durham residents say new LED lights give ‘perpetual daylight.’ What are the solutions?."