Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 8, Issue 4, April 2004

Copyright 2004 Seattle Sun. Please feel free to use the article below in your research. Be sure to cite the Seattle Sun as your source.

Plan to light Magnuson Park Playfields sparks controversy

By JAMES BUSH

Developing athletic fields in Magnuson Park was a low-profile process until neighbors saw the light.

Seeking to illustrate the appearance of the planned lighting for the park's proposed 11 lit sports fields, City staffers arranged a November 2001 demonstration with four 1000-watt light fixtures mounted on a trio of 83-foot cranes.

Residents of the surrounding area noticed the demonstration in a big way, as shown by these comments from the project's final environmental impact statement (FEIS).

"At the most recent lighting demonstration, I was appalled by the intensity of the light I saw from my home," wrote wildlife biologist and 16-year Sand Point-area resident Diana Russell.

"I could see the sports field lighting demonstration while lying in bed," stated Marilyn Sandall. "They were as bright as halogen headlights."

Marsha Nemitz added this postscript: "You had to see it to believe what three lights did to the area."

The current plan for the park is to install 628 of these 1,000-watt light fixtures on 78 poles, most standing about 75 feet high (some are as tall as 85 feet). They will illuminate 11 artificial turf sports fields. The vast majority of the lights will be full cutoff fixtures (with bulbs placed inside metal boxes so the light shines directly down), while two of the baseball fields will use about 100 shielded conventional fixtures (the bulbs are inside a bowl-shaped shield). Full cutoff fixtures virtually eliminate off-site glare.

According to the City's FEIS, more than 98 percent of the light generated by the Magnuson fixtures will be directed downward.

If you'd like to see the difference between types of lighting systems with your own eyes, a full cutoff lighting system was recently installed at the Nathan Hale High School stadium.

The south baseball field at Lower Woodland Park has shielded conventional lights (although significantly brighter ones than those planned for Magnuson Park) and the north soccer field at Lower Woodland is equipped with old-fashioned standard floodlights.

And we should also define a few terms: Glare is most easily described as a direct view of the light filament (think headlines shining directly into your eyes), spill light is light which goes outside the surface you want illuminated (like those high-intensity desk lamps that illuminate the desktop, while dimly lighting the entire room) and sky glow is caused by light reflected both from the illuminated surface and from particles in the air.

How brightly will the Magnuson fields be lit? The soccer fields will be lit to about 25 FC (foot candles), while the baseball infield will be at 30 FC.

For comparison, the interior of an office building is lit to about 50 FC, downtown streets are at about 5 FC and Interstate 5's dim lights are at about 1 FC. Full moonlight is at about .02 FC.

Critics say the project's biggest problem is that it's simply too large. Currently the city's largest cluster of lit sports fields are the seven at Lower Woodland Park. If all 11 Magnuson Park fields are lit, they will represent more than one-third of the city's total inventory of 30 lit playfields.

The 11 fields will also occupy a large geographic area, approximately seven blocks long (north and south) and three blocks wide. Jim Benya, an Oregon lighting designer who worked as a consultant on two previous environmental appeals of the project for Friends of Magnuson Park, said the City's lighting designers have done competent work.

"The design team appears to have obeyed every practical rule that is out there in terms of trying to protect the environment as much as possible," Benya said. "The problem is lighting it in the first place. Once you introduce this much light in this kind of context, just doing it is the concern."

Benya said a lighting project of this scale would overwhelm any park, much less a shoreline park where the lights can be seen for miles. "You're taking a pristine setting, or as pristine as you're going to find within city limits, and you're going to ruin it," he said.

Critics of the project fear the lights will have major effects on wildlife, especially the more than 150 species of birds which live in the park. According to the FEIS, a band of spill light at about 1 FC (again, about the level of I-5's street lights and many times brighter than full moonlight) will extend about 135 feet into the habitat areas adjacent to the sports fields.

There is very little research specifically on the effects of shielded sports lighting systems on wildlife. According to the EIS, artificial outdoor lighting has been shown to cause disrupt feeding and nesting patterns of some birds, and can be especially detrimental to species that migrate nocturnally (they are first attracted to the lighted area, then are reluctant to fly out into the dark). Magnuson Park's status as an unpaved island in an urban area has made it a common stop for migratory species.

In its official comment letter, the Seattle Audubon Society also claimed that the proposed artificial lighting will affect the species composition of the park, pushing out wilder species such as owls in favor of more crows.

But supporters of the field project claim the intermittent nature of field lights (they aren't used every day or left on all night) and the work done to restore the park's historic wetlands should allow nature to coexist with recreation.

Ed D'Alessandro of the Seattle Youth Soccer Association, said that an incorrect estimate of the reflectance of artificial turf used in the FEIS inflated the calculations of potential sky glow. The FEIS gives the fields an estimated reflectance value of 20 percent (grass and foliage is about 5 percent reflective; concrete pavement is about 10 percent).

Actual measurements recently taken at Seattle's Genesee Playfield by a consultant working for Seattle's Friends of Athletic Fields show the correct reflectance figure is about 10 percent, D'Alessandro said.

The project has also been modified to minimize the effects on families living in two low-income housing structures on the Sand Point/Magnuson Park property. The original field layout was shuffled to move youth sports facilities (whose lights will be turned off earlier in the evening) closer to the buildings.

But the issue of sky glow and surface luminance remains controversial. After dark, the brightly-lit Magnuson fields could be "evident to viewers up to several miles distant in some locations," states the EIS; an issue which has led to concerns over the project from Eastside residents and neighborhood groups.

And many people simply prefer it to be dark outside at night. In the section titled "significant unavoidable adverse impacts," the FEIS states that: "Some residents in areas farther to the west and south of the project site will notice the sports field lights in operation, even though they would not directly be exposed to glare, and would likely consider this to be a significant impact."

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The Seattle City Council will hold a public hearing on the proposed Magnuson Park playfield project on Wednesday, April 21 at 6 p.m. in City Hall's Council Chambers. Written comments on the project can be sent on or before that date to david.della@seattle.gov.