Myles: energy efficiency. if you can use energy efficiency as your way to to the dark sky, you know, that might be the way to get there. And if somebody has grant ideas, send them my way. But because there are ideas out there and there are groups that would actually help try to try and do that, like the Northern Dura Astrology ⁓ Astronomy I'm blanking the gentleman's name. But he worked hard on this the point where he got he had to step back because there was he he was getting really frustrated. But he managed to get several billboards to change their lighting. But some of these backlit billboards are a problem because there's no way to keep that light on a big screen. But some of these new billboards would go in and they'd put these bright new lights on them. think the Link Billboard company was doing this and the light wasn't even hitting half of it wasn't even hitting the sign. It was just going into the sky. And he was battling with them. Could you just at least angle it toward the billboard if you're going to shine it from below? But even better, have the light above shining down on that billboard. And he was able to make some headway on some of those. But that's a big thing, too, is. certain signs or people who have like a big floodlight flashing at a flag, you know, it's great to have your pride in the flag. But what you're doing is like, nobody among us who doesn't want to look up and see the stars. I that's a pretty universal thing. think that's got to be 99 percent to one ⁓ in of being able to see stars, if you can. And I think a lot of the listeners hearing us talk right now are probably driving up from Milwaukee or Chicago or some other place. where they don't get to see the stars all the time and they know the feeling of the first time you get in Door County and you open your car door and you walk outside and you look up and you're like, wow. Because that's what I realized when I was living in Chicago and then I'd come up here. It really slapped me in the face after being in the city. I forgot. Because you don't get to see that. No, you don't. And that's one the many reasons why it's good to try and... dim the lights that we have everywhere. Newport State Park does a lot of programming around the night skies and it's incredibly important, mean incredibly popular because people don't get to see the night skies and they especially don't see the Milky Way ⁓ magnificence the way that you can on a really, really, really dark night up here. And is ⁓ one the big reasons. ⁓ But it's also for wildlife and they illuminating the sky all the time or if the sky is always light, it's not good for circadian rhythms for humans. It's not good for a lot of things. And there is a company now that, and this is just so ironic, because they're trying to figure out a way to power, make solar power more efficient. And so there is a company that wants to put these massive shields up in the sky to make it lighter all the time through the night. is, yeah, new technology. And there's the dark sky. I learned about this from dark sky because they are totally against that, of course. But it shows what it would look like. It would be a constant state of Alaska. I've been to Alaska so many times because my sister lives there, but I don't like to go in June because it's light ⁓ the time. And that is so disturbing to me. And it's just so weird. And when it does get dark, which is for about two hours, it's not dark. It's like that twilight. Well, that's what this technology would do ⁓ to, you places where it's trying to. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's I mean, maybe if they could do that from three o'clock to five o'clock January Yeah, they're great. Very wonderful. I would love that. Yeah Yeah, of which next week is ⁓ ⁓ week when I can actually walk and run outside in the morning before work again. I am so excited when that week comes because I just get really tired of being on the treadmill. If anybody sees a really jubilant runner down in the Bayshore Drive area, is Deb. Thanks for putting a target on my back, Miles. Well, Deb, thanks for the story. I'm sure there'll be some follow up because I know we got a lot of feedback right away when you did that and got people talking. And hopefully if it's if a you know, maybe a couple hundred people out there are doing their own property light audit and businesses maybe listening can can do a little bit. You might see a change. Yeah, great. And that's why we want to. Exactly. right. Thanks, Deb. All right. Thank you, Miles. Hello and welcome back to the Door County Pulse podcast. We have gotten through the election season. Spring might finally be close, maybe potentially close. And there's a bunch of news to talk about. So Deborah Fitzgerald has been very busy and she joined me on the podcast today. Deb, thanks for coming back on. I feel like I. I finally am breathing today. You've been buried for a couple of weeks. Yeah, it's, you know, always putting the sustainability issue together, but more to come on that. But yeah, so when we finally wrap the content for that, just feels like, whoo. Yeah. And we'll talk about that next week because you've done some great work. We're really excited about that issue coming out a week from today. And then. Yeah, the election stuff is always, it's a lot, a lot of different candidates to get in touch with and get all that out there for, hopefully for voters to make a good decision. But today we're going to talk about some things in the sky, I guess. ⁓ going to get to an article you wrote. Things that should and shouldn't be. A little bit later we'll talk about the ⁓ article wrote about dark sky initiatives in Northern North. But first, Also sort of in the sky is cameras in Sturgeon Bay and the city of Sturgeon Bay. A few years ago, a couple of years ago, the city put in these new, what do call them, flock cameras for security cameras? think that's the name of the company. So everyone refers to them as flock cameras, which makes you think of birds at first. It is not for bird watching. But it makes a good headline, flack over flock. But there's... but it is for watching. it is. Tell what these cameras are and why this has become such a big issue. Yeah. So ⁓ Kevin who covers the city for us, has been doing a really good job covering this. ⁓ And did cover it just as he covers almost everything that happens in the city ⁓ a of years ago when they decided to go with this company and have them installed. they put about 10, not about, they put 10. around the city nobody really said anything ⁓ that time when they had them installed. don't know if they just weren't paying attention at that particular moment or what. And these are cameras placed in public places. Yes. ⁓ they're fixed cameras. So they, you know, stay there. And the reason getting them, the police department was really the advocate for them because they said that it definitely help them, help them with investigations in crime. And then flash forward, the contract was for a couple of years or 21 months, something like that. ⁓ They renewing, at renewing the contract for another 21 months. And that's when began to take notice. So they came to first meeting ⁓ it was being considered expressed, I disapproval ⁓ of these cameras up. There have been some high profile cases where they've been abused. I think there was a Milwaukee police officer who allegedly used the to information on his girlfriend or something. So there have been instances around the country where these cameras have been abused there also cases where the information can be shared ⁓ and people who were not favor of them did not, they didn't like the idea that the information could be shared with the federal government or that these the data could be hacked. It's an interesting case. because of all the things that have happened in the time since it's only been a couple of years since Sturgeon Bay put these in. But those couple of years in terms of surveillance and data collection are like it's like a few decades worth of things have happened because you have these kind of cameras being used by ICE to track people and find people and a little more awareness from the public general public about like the the lack of security around these security cameras, right? Of the ability for people to hack into home security cameras and things like that. So there's this pushback now and privacy pushback ⁓ wasn't there just two years ago. ⁓ then the advancement of AI and the way that you can use AI to comb through and correlate things ⁓ has transformed we look at these. And I don't think, I think a lot of people, probably most of our listeners aren't really ⁓ super aware that yet, but it's ⁓ a amongst a small group of people that's becoming more more sentient. And don't how that information is being used. I just read a story this morning ⁓ about one the companies who decided not to release ⁓ one of its AI programs ⁓ because it's too at finding faults ⁓ with ⁓ systems. it trained do that. Then of the programmers who was eating lunch suddenly gets a text message from the program. And he surprised by that because it was supposed to be offline. It wasn't supposed to be online. And ⁓ jumped experiment and then was bragging about how it had escaped. people, I think the general public not really understand. ⁓ exactly how advanced this technology ⁓ has become already and is being used on a regular basis. So ⁓ would be silly for investigators not to ⁓ AI to go through any of that information. And where does it go from there? And then the thing is, all of us, if we were the victim of a crime, we would want them to use that in every way possible to solve that crime, ⁓ most us. The problem is there's nothing in all of human history that says things are going to be contained to their best and proper use. And that's the fear factor that comes with it. And in a place like Sturgeon Bay, you really do have to weigh the risk versus the reward. the reward the police department gave, they listed some of the crimes that they had used cameras for. They assisted with an arson on Washington Island. Motor vehicle thefts. don't know of any motor vehicle thefts. Not that I'm tracking, so ⁓ probably must be. But when is the last time you heard of a car being stolen? There's not a scourge of them. I imagine not. But hit and runs, a burglary, a death investigation, property damage, a welfare check, and drug arrests. So they listed. ⁓ a gamut of different things that they've used the cameras for. But the city. doesn't mean that that's why they solved them, it just some, that could be something as simple as like a little bit of footage was used. Yeah, yeah, a tool. You know, it's a tool ⁓ we know that they're good tools because security cameras are what investigators use all the time and almost every store one. The bridges Sturgeon Bay. The bars have them, schools have them. They're everywhere. So really they are helpful and they make their job easier, which is important to the person who's doing the job. But apparently the city sided with those who did not want these cameras renewed and did not renew the contract. So the cameras are going away. so the contract is roughly $52,000 over the 21 months. So not a massive expenditure from the city, but not nothing. yeah, when you're weighing that, you got the cost of the cameras, you got the the of the city. Now, in other cities, they're pretty common to have cameras on you all the time. ⁓ And you watch a British crime show, ⁓ that how every crime is ⁓ solved everything you've ever done is on ⁓ CCTV. Right. Right. any crime TV. I mean, ⁓ that's they solve crimes. Yeah, it's simple. But yeah, so that's interesting. yeah, the flip side is, like you said, all these places do have cameras. So what's the big deal if the city has 10? If 400 businesses in that same corridor have them pointed at the alley, pointed at their front doors, pointed at the highway, if City Hall has them, like, okay, what's the big deal if we have 10 more? So it is an interesting question, but those privacy concerns. or something that I get more and more. I've always been of the mindset of like, hey, if these people want your information, they're gonna find it anyway. But now it's what AI has done that makes me think of it a little differently. And this came up in a conversation with a professor on this podcast a couple of weeks ago, which just, what it means for the justice system and how, if you wanted to entangle someone, if the wrong actor, and we have that, we have people using political reasons to go after people in the... as a president right now. don't think that's debatable. So ⁓ in sorts of ways, if you would cross the sheriff, there's a way to really mess with somebody's life now, if somebody wanted to, ⁓ and a tool that way, and just go up your jaywalk and you're in court. It catch you for absolutely everything and do it pretty, without a lot of man hours, using AI to do these things. that's the of stuff that Sarge said. change the whole dynamic to me. it's just really interesting how Big Brother has changed over the years, but we still do have in this country anyway, a reaction against Big Brother and all of its manifestations. So throughout history, we've always objected to being watched by a government entity. Yeah. And the one thing. Kind of our founding. Yes, well right, right. We wanted to get as far away from that as we possibly could. We went across the ocean. But the one thing that came out of that story that I really want to into is how they assisted Washington Island with an arson with cameras in Sturgeon Bay. My was I thought that too when you first said, ⁓ wait, that was probably the guy getting away and they found him in Sturgeon Bay. Right, exactly. As he happened to be driving in the park or I'm walking in the park. don't know. Once you got across death's door, you're like, well, now I'm free. Yeah, got away with it. they probably hopefully the the ⁓ trash haulers that have ⁓ in county have cameras so they can ⁓ maybe ⁓ who and isn't throwing out batteries. Right. ⁓ you an interesting story in this week's paper on that. ⁓ And ⁓ what this? bill, it's actually a law now because the governor signed it. So what is this law about? a. Joel Kitchens had started this conversation and looking into problems with batteries just starting on fire and not is not just like the battery sitting on your shelf in your kitchen ⁓ and it's spontaneously combusting, which is kind my thought when I first heard about this and you mean like the double A or the triple A. OK, yeah. So it's not that it's not like your phone just suddenly bursting into flames for no reason. This was in particular, it's about a lot of these electronic devices and the lithium ion batteries in them rechargeable batteries are also in this boat. If you damage batteries, they can spark and that spark is extremely hot and it can start ⁓ a fire or big fire. It can burn people like if it's in their pocket and somehow your phone got damaged and it somehow damage the battery, could potentially like burn you. But most of this was ⁓ or where I started to become more aware of it is when garbage trucks like last around this time last year are going garbage truck. The load burst into flames at the gas station. So here's a big garbage truck full of trash. And fire starts and luckily the driver saw it and then pulled away from ⁓ any or anything ⁓ and their load. And then they had to call the fire department to put out this fire ⁓ like You know, a dumpster fire. they determined that it was a lithium battery. Yeah. So what happens is obviously when you garbage truck, they compress and when they do that, then you're going to damage a lot of these batteries and they can combust and start a fire. So there's I think they said 70 if I have my number right, 75 to 100 in like the Door County area. I've been reported small fires. I'm sorry. In Wisconsin. OK. And if several of them in Door County. And I was talking to the Estes and Jeff Johnson back during the snowstorm about how are they getting their their garbage trucks around and how are they doing trash collection in a storm? Like how does this affect them? And I was talking to them, ⁓ we talking about this bill and it kind of put it ⁓ newly my radar because I thought it was like a small thing. for them, they're like, yeah, this is a big thing we're dealing with. Like and I get it. Like if if. newspapers were capable of spontaneously combusting, would really concern me to have our drivers going around every day and wondering if like a fire might start in their truck, which is happening to those guys. ⁓ then it becomes a lot more real. I was like, ⁓ this is not like some minuscule thing. This is actually worth talking about. ⁓ is it and we all use batteries, of course. So it applies to almost every household. ⁓ so it's not just the regular batteries that you're ⁓ the AA, the AAA, it has to be a lithium battery? Yes. basically- So if I get, which I do, I get the lithium AA and AAA batteries because they last longer outside for certain things. So it would apply to those too. Yeah. And tons of my kids' ⁓ nowadays have those rechargeable batteries that are in there. Your ⁓ your electronics are the big thing. And you- ⁓ you know, like a musical greeting card uses these because they can be made so tiny. And you throw that in the trash. I've been doing that. A lot of these things, you don't think of them as batteries. just things you own. Yeah. And and you don't even consider the battery part of it. I used to be very cognizant of alkaline batteries and I would keep them out of the trash. I'd take them and dispose of them through the garbage company. And then I had read that you you know, nowadays you can throw those out. don't need to collect them. Right, yes. And that's true. those are the everyday batteries. your typical Durazel AA, AAA. But in this bill, what they're doing is they're just going to encourage everyone to... with this bill that Joel Kinshian sponsors that just got signed into law, ⁓ it does is it sets up free collection sites, at least one in every county. So they haven't determined where those will be yet. Going garbage takes these now, but now there'll be another site free that the manufacturers pay for. So they pay for that collection. the alkaline battery manufacturers will pay less, but basically everyone, they're gonna try and get everyone dropping these batteries at collection sites because the average consumer, most of us don't know lithium ion alkaline, it's just Right, totally. And ⁓ was actually reading the bill when I was ⁓ looking at your story and... ⁓ And it makes it sound like it's all batteries, but it's not real clear, you know, what that law actually pertains to. it's not that it's dangerous for you to throw this out, but they're just like, let's eliminate confusion for the consumer. That makes sense. Let's get them recycling as many of these as we can or disposing of them properly. And there's also the factor of there's metals and there are other things in batteries that it's good to dispose of in a different way. So. Yeah, it's just a, and I think it came out of me asking Jeff Johnson. Who is going garbage. Who is going garbage. A question about recycling nowadays and like what, where does it go? And cause you know, you have, and this is a story I'll be working on for another issue, but we had a letter from somebody or an email that came in that, ⁓ wondering like, Hey, what I'm told that like all this stuff ends up in the trash anyway. None of it actually gets recycled. And I said that to Jeff and he was like, yeah, we hear that all the time. And it's not true. Like you should go down, take a tour. We take our stuff to Outagamey. You can see how it all works. So I'm planning on doing that and getting a real detailed look at recycling, but that's how this battery recycling came up. Because I said, my head is still probably a lot of my thoughts about what, how recycling works is based on like whatever I, when I was deep diving in it like 15 years ago and things have changed a lot the batteries were one of those. And then he was talking about that. So. And that, so, and I will be really interested in learning when you're working on this story. I'm very interested in it because one line sticks in my head. I have zero understanding of where it comes from. It could be total misinformation, but it's not at the local recycling centers like Otagami or wherever they take their recycling. It's, we can't sell it to China anymore. We can't sell our recycling. And so it's not going anywhere. That's what I understand the situation to be. But I have no idea, like I said, if I'm right on that. So I can't wait for your report. Well, let's get a maybe we'll invest in like 20 air tags and follow our trash. That's a great idea, because I remember a friend of mine even said in that air tag, you'll probably spontaneously can bust in. All right. There you go. And you know what? I can now trace where I got that. I was staying when I first moved back to Dorough County. This is like six years ago. I was staying at a friend's house and I think I threw out a glass jar of something into the recycling and I didn't get all of the substance out of the glass jar and she picked it up out of the recycling and said, this is why China doesn't take our recycling anymore. That's the root of the geopolitical economic cycle right there. Right, right. So now you can do a story and debunk that. I'll be diving deep. I'll just ride along with the trash truck for while. Well, a lot easier these days. You don't have to get out, pick up the... Yeah. Bends. just deal with people like me who don't properly put their trash on the side of the road where it's supposed to go. Sometimes. Anyway, ⁓ moving right along that. Now I want to talk about the dark sky stuff. after the break. you did an article about the efforts to... ⁓ Reduced light pollution in northern door and a few I just got a seven eight years ago now that Newport State Park was designated as an international dark sky park, which was a big deal and ⁓ there some people worried that that might come under threat because of some of the light pollution in northern door Yeah, it's not Chicago. It's not Milwaukee not even sturgeon Bay Mm-hmm, but there is a glow. So tell me what led you down this path and actually I'll say one more thing. When you started on this story, I had happened to spend a few days in Sedona, Arizona, and I was stunned by how dark it was, and it's a bigger city than Sturgeon Bay, and it is ⁓ black at night, almost unnervingly so, it's so dark ⁓ you're going to driving on the highways and they do such a great job. So I came back and I mentioned that and you ⁓ I am just talking to people about dark sky in Northern Dores. So ⁓ pretty... good comparison there. yeah, just curious what you found. ⁓ ⁓ we're just talking about Arizona, Flagstaff, Arizona is where Dark Sky International first began. That city still has, and it's a city of 80,000 people, and is still a dark sky designated city. So it can happen. What actually me interested in the story was a photo. Tim Erskine, who takes really beautiful photos. He's a local resident and him and his wife will do teach some classes at Newport State Park. They're part of the Northern Door Astronomy Club, but he sends us photos for submissions for Dora Lens and for consideration for other things. And this happened to be the November Aurora Borealis he sent in photos. We used it on the cover. But in that email he sent, he said, you can already see that the sky glow in a certain location from Newport State Park is starting to infiltrate more. And I thought, that's interesting. thought that all had ordinances that required new development to have downward lighting and to have lighting on timers. This is an old thing, right? I didn't think that it was anything that people weren't currently doing. And so I decided to contact Beth at ⁓ Beth Bartoli at Newport State Park to find out if there was indeed any kind of a threat. And so that's kind of where the story kicked off because there is a threat. And it's not because we have massive development and it's not because don't have any downward casting, lighting or lighting on timers. ⁓ it's just not widespread enough. there aren't any municipal ordinances ⁓ would require ⁓ to be that way. That's what was the trigger for this is that Liberty Grove was actually looking at a resolution to adopt some dark sky initiatives ⁓ they passed that resolution. And did that because Beth Bartoli does a lot of outreach ⁓ about danger of the night sky. And listen to that. ⁓ And astonishing thing about it is, of course, the neighboring communities like Sister Bay and Liberty Grove would be the most impactful because they're right there. But the light glow can ⁓ come as far away as 18 miles. Yeah. I read that and I was like, wow, that's almost Marinette ⁓ you're about. Well, you know, when I was talking with the Dark Sky Initiatives person, ⁓ He said, you know, I gave him that statistic and I said, is this, is this a real thing? And he said, actually, the sky glow can be seen from a hundred miles away. He said, if you are in Flagstaff, you can, or a certain place, I can't remember. It might've been in Utah, but you can see Las Vegas, you know, from a hundred miles away at the Grand Canyon. And so that light glow is, is, it ⁓ travels. ⁓ so. Newport State Park to just be sure that this starts turn the other direction because they do have to take sky quality readings and they to do that a couple of times a year. They were ⁓ certified in and they were the first and are still the only park in all of Wisconsin to have this light dark sky certification. ⁓ So Dark International has this ⁓ range. and of dark skies. So 21.75 to 22 is considered to be the darkest skies in the world. So you're in the middle of the Mojave Desert. when Newport State Park was first certified using 2016 data, so for 2017, we were at 21.71. So almost among the darkest skies in the world. Every year, every two years, she takes these readings. And in order to be a dark sky certified park, you have to have a sky quality meter reading of 21.2. And we had dropped from the 21.7 to exactly 21.2 last year. So it might sound like a small range, but that level, you're no longer seeing a of things that you could see in the night sky with the darkest skies in the world. You know, it's interesting as you talk about this and you're like, all right, so who's to blame? And I wouldn't even say it as a blame thing. No. ⁓ A lot of us have lights on our garages or our house that shine up and we don't think twice about it. Right. But we all also want to see the sky. And if our neighbor had that light, we'd be like, I wish you'd do something about that light. And then we look at our own property and like, ⁓ I have one of those. Yes. So it's not to like cast aspersions on anybody, but I could walk around in my little rural area of Liberty Grove. And I'm thinking of my own little cafe lights in the backyard. That's eliminate or putting up a little bit of a glow. Yeah. Which isn't that alone is not going to ruin the sky. But 20 of our neighbors doing that starts to contribute. And what I saw in Sedona was they would have those same lights. It's just they'd have a Little simple metal cap on the top of them. So it'd be shielded. So it's shielded. So it's not going up. And that alone, little things like that. You could do that on your garage light. You can do that on the floodlight. That's. illuminating your backyard, just to keep it facing downward, that would go a long way. That's not perfect. That's not like the state of the art. That's just a simple thing. And that's the big message that they try and get out is that dark sky friendly does not mean no light. It just means the right kind of light. Keep it on your property. Keep it on your property. Don't let it bleed into other properties. And also, they're really big on timers. There really is no reason for that garage light that you have on all night to be on all night. people do it because ⁓ lot of times people will move up to Door County from the city and ⁓ associate light with less crime. right. ⁓ know, Beth was telling me that even if there is ⁓ seasonal on the road leading to Newport that keeps its lights on all night long, six months out of the year because they're not there, even that is a disturbance to their night viewing sky. So it's even just one. So it's shielding them, it's putting them on timers. There's actually the right kind of light. So, you know, those very, very white, white Christmas lights that you see a lot of times, is considered to be ⁓ ⁓ intrusive. I you said eight times ⁓ bright. Yes, yes. So you want the amber colored lights like the, you know, they're more yellowish white colored. Those are softer. So there are lots of things that people can do to make sure that the light is not going up into the sky. Well, I don't want to call anyone out specifically by business or organization, but there are some places in sister Bay that have that aren't open in the evening that have a ton of parking lot. and it's lit up like a Christmas tree. And even if those are downward facing, it still up. So getting some places to reconsider, ⁓ of having eight lights, have two instead of even having ⁓ two, have them on timers or motion sensors, making sure they're downward facing. A lot of the villages have done a pretty good job of doing dark, whenever they've redone roads, ⁓ of their streetlights in that manner. But then of these you know, might have 20 lights on a single property. the 20 lights in a downtown just are dwarfed by that one. So an e from is an example that I have in the story of one that does it right. So when they did their streetscape project, they required all of their lights to be dark sky friendly. So all of those street lights have been switched over. They also have a sign ordinance that requires all new signs to be dark sky friendly. That doesn't necessarily eliminate the signs that don't have dark sky friendly. But that was one thing I was really curious about is funding for this. Because if you switch out, for instance, Liberty Grove is doing an assessment of all of its streetlights. it has ⁓ 200 or something, I believe that ⁓ told me, which I, of course, ⁓ a long. municipality, but I just don't even think of where the streetlights are. So she said that they, you know, she thought they had about 200 or so they're going to be assessing all of those lights. Well, those are expensive for a municipality to switch out. So I was interested in grants that might be available to be able to do that. And the dark sky people said that, you know, they're not aware of any that are specific. What they're more aware of is community initiatives where you adopt a streetlight. or you raise, you know, you have a fundraiser and you raise money, a certain amount of funds to change a certain amount of the street lights over. So. Well, what I found, because your article made me look at this, was looking up grants for that sort of thing, because I'm working on this park project, which has at the Sister Bay ice rink, the lights there. You'd think it's a stadium as you approach it. right. Yeah. I'll shine straight up. And we'd like to make that not so obtrusive on the night sky. And I didn't see anything directly for the dark sky side of it, but.