As many of you are already aware, the Village of Great Neck is preparing to install LED streetlights throughout the entire village.
Many cities around the world have already rushed to replace their existing streetlights with LED lights, due to manufacturer’s claims of cost savings and longer bulb life.
Despite the promise of cost savings, LED conversion is often received with high emotions, significant protest and numerous resident complaints.
In New York City, around 150 complaints came into the 311 Hotline as soon as LED installation began last year.
More than 500 people signed a petition on Change.org and many more continue to voice their outrage on the Internet.
Mayor de Blasio had to resign himself to “residents know best” and resolved the situation by swapping out the too-bright, too-glaring 78-watt bulbs, replacing the offensive lighting with lower intensity 64-watt bulbs.
Of course, the added cost to swap out the objectionable lighting adversely affected the cost savings.
In July 11, 2016, New York Times ran an article entitled, “New York’s LED Streetlights: A Crime Deterrent to Some, A Nuisance to Others.”
New York Times reporter Matt A.V. Chaban cites, “From Windsor Terrace in Brooklyn to the West Village in Manhattan, and Flushing in Queens, hundreds of grievances have flooded official inboxes and switchboards as residents complain that LEDs are harsh and hideous. Some say they cannot sleep at night.”
In the upscale community of Davis, Calif., resident complaints about brightness and glare of their new streetlights forced the town to remove their new 2014 investment at a cost of $350,000, to replace them with less objectionable LED lighting.
LED bulbs leaning toward the yellow spectrum was the hero in Davis, Calif.
It turns out that this new type of LED (“white” LED) comes with some significant drawbacks, which many communities are electing to ignore due to the promoted cost savings.
These LEDs are perceived as white to the human eye because they are a combination different colors of light, but they are comprised of mostly blue light.
The combination of different colors yields white light. The intense white LED lights are the most efficient with regard to cost savings, but they also present the greatest danger to human health (American Medical Association).
Here’s what the vulnerable public needs to know: Scientists have known for decades that blue light is dangerous: it can damage the retina in your eyes and can cause disruption to our sleep cycle — the circadian rhythm.
The damage that blue light causes is, in fact, cumulative in the same way that X-rays are cumulative. Even brief exposures over a number of years add up.
Scientists believe there may be links between exposure to blue light and macular degeneration, attention deficit disorder, and cancer.
The fact is that no one really knows what the hazards of long-term exposure to these white LEDs are.
These light bulbs represent a totally new type of light — one that we have never had experience with before.
Because these lights are based on new technology, scientists have not had any opportunity to study the consequences of long-term exposure to white LEDs.
Recent headline from the Harvard Health Letter (2015): Light at night is bad for your health, and exposure to blue light emitted by electronics and energy-efficient lightbulbs may be especially so.
The LED spectrum ranges from yellow on one end, blue on the other, with white in the middle.
This characteristic of LEDs is called the “temperature,” and it’s measured in Kelvin. The lower the Kelvin, the less blue light is emitted. These lights are considered safer than the higher-temperature lights.
To give you some benchmarks, candles are at about 1000K; incandescent bulbs at 3000K; sunlight at about 5400K.
Two important points: 1. LED bulbs leaning toward yellow end of the spectrum are considered safer; 2. bulbs that are labeled “sunlight” or “natural light” are actually nothing like real sunlight; there’s a lot more blue light emitted from these bulbs compared to the sun.
The American Medical Association (June 2016 Conference) has recently presented official guidelines for optimal LED characteristics. {Google: AMA Adopts Guidance to Reduce Harm from High Intensity Street Lights.}
Specifically, they are recommending that people stay away from lights which emit heavily toward the blue end of the spectrum. Their recommendation is that we use bulbs with a maximum of 3000K.
In addition, they caution against installing lights that are too bright (we’re talking about watts or lumens here, not temperature) because 1. they are very distracting and 2. can cause physical damage to the eye as well.
The AMA wants you to know that “discomfort and disability from intense, blue-rich LED lighting can decrease visual acuity and safety, resulting in concerns and creating a road hazard.”
Here’s the critical point: certain LEDs may NOT cause discomfort in the majority of people, but that does not, in fact, make them safe. Just think of X-rays or UV rays. We understand intellectually that X-rays and UV rays are dangerous, but we do not experience physical danger at the moment we’re exposed to these rays.
The AMA also wants you to know that bright nighttime lighting is associated with reduced sleep times, dissatisfaction with sleep quality, excessive sleepiness, impaired daytime functioning and obesity.
Excessive lighting disrupts many animal species that require a dark environment.
In addition, poorly designed LED lighting disorients some bird, insect, turtles and fish species.
Recent headline from the Washington Post (September, 2016): Some cities are taking another look at LED lighting after AMA warning. “Concerns about adverse health and environmental effects have been raised by a number of scientists over the past few years, but the AMA report adds credence to the issue and is likely to prompt cities and states to reevaluate the intensity of LED lights they install.”
Remember what happened with asbestos and more recently, with artificial turf. Everyone rushed to purchase these products, and only after significant time had passed were the health risks uncovered. We don’t want our community to fall victim to the same thing here.
Our discussions with officials in the Village of Great Neck indicate that Village leaders are leaning toward the installation of 4000K bulbs. We’d prefer not to see LED lights installed at all, but if this plan is set in stone, why not consider 2,700K bulbs, as Davis, CA did? These are the same bulbs that satisfied the residents of Davis – after they forced their town officials to remove an earlier and offensive $350,000 investment. In their official policy statement on LED lights, the American Medical Association has set a recommended LIMIT of 3000K. We also need to remember that we don’t need lights with the same wattage as we had before. LED lights tend to be very bright and very intense, so you need to consider bulbs with lower wattage than you might have expected. The human eye perceives these lights as remarkably brighter than other lighting – so it is not a simple substitution when you talk about street light replacement for an entire community. The replacement process is quite complex. You have to consider the spread of the light—making sure it doesn’t shine into people’s houses—as well as different types of glass fixtures that may refract and/or filter the light.
The fact is that there are two good reasons that manufacturers exercise high-pressure tactics to sell these LEDs: 1. they recognize that the market will be saturated within a few years; 2. they are aware that better products will be coming to market shortly — which will make the existing LEDs that much harder to sell. If there are better LED products coming in the near future — shouldn’t we — as an intelligent, upscale community — wait a little longer to invest in them? Remember, the old adage, “It is better to be safe than sorry.”
We urge all of you to contact your local government, Nassau County leadership and Gov. Cuomo to voice your concerns about the plans to install LEDs.
There’s more to running a community than saving money — we need to think about health issues and about quality of life as well.
We’re an affluent community — cost considerations should not be the top priority. \
Communities with high crime rates like Detroit and Philadelphia are embracing LED street lighting, but this doesn’t mean it’s the best choice for our Long Island community.
Two years ago, when we initially began our research on LED bulbs, we believed the critical downside was one of visual discomfort when looking at these bulbs.
Residents from Brooklyn to California have been very vocal in complaining about how awful these bulbs look: like prison lights — too bright, too much glare — shining into their houses, creating situations in which sleep becomes impossible. However, our continuing research has convinced us that the downside of LEDs goes far beyond our physical discomfort with them.
Certain LED bulbs may not produce noticeable discomfort for the majority of people — but this does not mean that they are, in fact, safe.
When you factor in the segment of our population that is already light sensitive — due to age and various health conditions — we believe our government is taking a calculated risk with the public’s safety.
The authors of this letter experience physical discomfort whenever we come in contact with LED lighting in any shape or form.
Our mutual physical discomfort was the driving force behind two years of research on this new lighting. We learned more than we ever imagined — now you — the reader are informed, too.
Amy Glass, Ph.D.
Judy Shore Rosenthal
Great Neck
