Back in 2000, a wander through the Telegraph’s archives tell me, the state Legislature was debating ” the possible need for the regulation of outdoor lighting in order to provide standards and guidelines for improving the efficiency, visibility and safety of New Hampshire’s nighttime environment.” - in other words, Dark Sky laws to cut light pollution. I can’t find out what happened to that subcommittee, and as far as I can tell while searching the state’s laws (you can do that here) no such law exists.

Which is a shame, because preserving the night sky from unnecessary glare is just the sort of difficult, sweeping act that only governments can accomplish. Governments like the town of Bar Harbor, Maine, which as the Globe reports today, has just passed a fairly stringent law limiting the type and scope of outdoor lighting. The story also notes the difficulty of protecting the sky: “Just a few miles over the bridge that connects Mount Desert Island to the mainland is Ellsworth, where signs and glaring parking lots cast a bright, yellow haze.”

There used to be a state-based Dark Sky group, called New Hampshire Citizens for Responsible LIghting, but it has been defunct for years, and I can’t find a Massachusetts equivalent. The International Dark-Sky Association remains the biggest lobbying/information group for this push.

I have send a number of times in various venues that the North Country would be wise to push regional dark-sky laws, and use it as tourist bait. Seeing the Milky Way is a draw that urbanites can’t resist.