Make Rim Country a Dark Sky Community
Bortle Scale measuring night-sky visibility and light pollution
There have been attempts and interest in the past to make the Payson, Pine and Strawberry area a Dark Sky Community (1, 2, 3). Those articles from the Payson Roundup are from 2017 and nothing has been done since then. It seems we have been moving in the opposite direction actually, Payson “upgraded” their street lights near the Green Valley Park and are bright enough now to annoy home-owners in the area and possibly even give you x-rays. In Pine, they are building an 8-room lodge in front of the spot where the “Stargazing View Point” was (Here it is on Google Maps). The new construction doesn’t stop here, there are the new Rimside Apartments, new buildings in WoodShire community, the 20 new casitas for Strawberry Inn, and plans for a new 20-room hotel (which people are getting rustled up about). Soon Pine with be just as light-polluted as Payson.
As you can see from the light pollution map below, Payson is in a Bortle Class 4 night sky, Pine and Strawberry are Class 3 and up on the Rim you get Class 2-1. With lower Bortle Classes, you get to see more and more stars. When you are standing in the center of Phoenix for example, there are only a handful of stars visible to the naked eye. When you are up on the Rim, you can see thousands. While Payson expands with all of the new construction going on, so too will the light-pollution sphere and it may expand in to the Rim, dampening the appeal for coming up here to camp and stargaze.
Often, when flatlanders come up here for the first time, they are amazed at how many stars they can see. I am too still, it doesn’t get old.
I recently started an AirBnB Experience for teaching Astro-Photography and so far in the first 30 days I’ve had 8 people book which brought in a revenue of about $800 for me. An extra $800 in the first month and it’s not even Spring yet. I can tell you that everyone of them was fascinated by the dark sky we had and loved learning about space and would have LOVED to look through a telescope (coming soon). Imagine if we had a larger platform and a dedicated space for astro-tourism. $$$.
We used to have a nice little Stargazing View Point already built along the highway in Pine but now there will be lodge in front of it, likely with blinding porch and parking-lot lights. Yay!
Benefits of keeping Rim Country a dark sky area;
Tourism draw
There are something like 5,000 unique visitors each weekend to Rim Country (roughly calculated by me on a napkin) and most of them head to the Rim to camp and stargaze.
We can start a little Observatory to teach about astronomy, which will bring in astronomy clubs and have an annual astronomy festival in the summer (milkyway season).
Bryce Canyon has an annual astronomy festival. In 2018 visitors to the park created >$256,000,000 in economic benefits
Bryce Canyon says ~10% of visitors are involved with astro-activies in 2015. A growth from about 2.7% in 2005 (27,000/1,000,000), almost quadrupled while total visitors to the park have only doubled. If we do some quick math for just those, that’s up to ~$25,000,000 coming from astro-stuff! Tonto Natural Bridge gets about 122,000 visitors in 2018 giving about $7,000,000 to the area. We assume 10% of visitors will go to astro-stuff, 10% of 7mil is at least $700,000 because you also have to consider that not everyone coming to the area goes to the Tonto Bridge.
According to DarkSky.org, for every $1 spent on installing dark-sky friendly lighting, there was a return on investment of $2 due to increases in tourism, then you have to add economic benefits (those people will go shop in stores, stay in hotels, eat at restaurants)
Phoenix is planning on raising $18,000,000 for an observatory —> the demand is there
Save on electric costs
Light points down, where it needs to be and not in to people’s windows or the sky. Even if there is no tourism draw, this one is a no-brainer.
$$$
See above
List of Dark Sky Communities in AZ; DarkSky.org
Camp Verde (just 30 minutes north of Pine/Strawberry)
Village of Oak Creek
Cottonwood
Sedona
Flagstaff
Fountain Hills !!?? (if a place in Phoenix can do it then we aren’t even trying)
Seems like everything BUT Rim Country is a dark sky community already … and Pine/Strawberry ALREADY have darker skies than all of these places.
What do we have to do?
Outside lights need to be shielded and shine down.
Get the main street light bulbs replaced.
Dim lights, residential and stores. Maybe even just after 10pm.
Warmer-color lights (Orange instead of white/blue), 3000 Kelvin.
Turn off ball-field lights after 10pm or after the game.
Take down Christmas lights before at least February.
What’s the cost?
~$25,000 to replace bulbs along Main Street.
That’s too much! … No it’s not
Payson Cap Ex is ~$5,000,000 for 2020-2021 (see graph below).
A drop in the bucket.
About 0.005% actually.
A $25,000 investment to potentially add at least $700,000 in astro-related economic benefits.
Where should we build it?
There seems to be a lot of space and flat area at the entrance of Tonto Natural Bridge. It’s a Bortle Class 3 around there.
The Mogollon Rim Visitor Center could use an astro make-over. Bortle Class 2 up there.
Toss in another one at the top of the Rim about 5 minutes north of Strawberry. Why not? Just a concrete platform or something to replace the old Stargazing View Point. Like right around here.
All are along the highway and lots of people go to Tonto Bridge and the Rim Lakes anyway.