Wasatch County

Survey respondents support Heber Valley dark sky rules

KPCW | By Ben Lasseter

Published February 21, 2023 at 1:41 PM MST

[FILE] The Heber Valley night sky and whether stars are visible in it have attracted much attention since the LDS Church announced plans for a Heber Valley temple — possibly with bright lights shing upon it. — [STOCK] The Heber Valley night sky and whether stars are visible in it have attracted much attention since the LDS Church announced plans for a Heber Valley temple — possibly with bright lights shing upon it.

A group of Heber Valley residents who want to preserve a dark sky received over 1,000 responses to a survey about whether bright lights should be allowed at night. The group collected the responses after the LDS Church proposed building a temple near Heber City that could include such lights.

Red Ledges resident Lisa Bahash says the group Save Wasatch Back Dark Skies posted an online survey link in Facebook groups and other social media as well as at local businesses.

The survey asked for people’s preferences about the night sky. After ten days, Bahash said they had an overwhelming response.

“The majority are from Wasatch County,” Bahash said. “But we have respondents coming in from all over Utah, and from outside of Utah as well, because so many people come here to enjoy its rural nature.”

96% of the respondents said county government should ensure the current dark sky guidelines remain the same. 95% said the county should enforce even more restrictions to reduce the amount of light allowed at night.

Wasatch County’s outdoor lighting code, last updated in 2014, bans most lights that shine upward after dark.

The Save Wasatch Back Dark Skies group created the survey after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proposed to change the county’s rules against light pollution. The church held a groundbreaking ceremony in October and has since moved on to early planning and permitting phases but doesn’t have a building permit yet.

The survey doesn’t mention the church, but in November, records obtained by KPCW showed the church proposed to change Wasatch County dark sky rules to allow what’s called uplighting. It asked that exterior lights be allowed to shine upward until 10 p.m., and be turned on again at 5:30 a.m.

Such lighting would violate the current county code adopted in 2002 intended to preserve dark sky.

Many comments included in the survey opposed the rule-change petition by the church.

“Our first and foremost concern is the rural nature of our community,” Bahash said. “Is this going to be the next large city in Utah, and it's going to have no access to dark skies, to seeing the Milky Way and so forth. Because we're going to fill it up, and it's all going to be business driven with a lot of light pollution, thereby running out the wildlife, the migrating patterns. It's a beautiful, pleasant place to live, and I think a lot of people don't want to see that change.”

Bahash’s group plans to present the survey responses to the Wasatch County planning commission and county council at upcoming meetings. The survey is available at this link.

According to Wasatch County Planning Director Doug Smith, the next step in the process to change the lighting code would start at the planning commission. As of now, that discussion isn’t on any future agendas.