Desert town embraces dark
10 years later, it’s clear to see why the desert town of Borrego Springs was named a Dark Sky Community.
Borrego Springs celebrates a decade of stargazing glory.
SAN DIEGO — Vallen Szabo remembers the first time she really noticed the desert stars.
It happened shortly after she moved to Borrego Springs 30 years ago. She had lived in Los Angeles and New York, where you can see skylines — but little sky.
“My first experience with it was sitting out in front of my parents’ house in their hot tub, looking up at the sky, and wondering what was up with that swath of clouds,” she said. There hadn’t been any clouds in the sky that day.
“Then it dawned on me,” Szabo said. “It was the Milky Way. I tell that story to people all the time. If you want to see the Milky Way or the best moon viewing, this is the place to be.”
This year, the desert community of Borrego Springs will celebrate the 10th anniversary of being designated a Dark Sky Community by the International Dark-Sky Assn., or IDA. It is the first community in California to receive the honor and remains the only one in the state.
There are just 22 Dark Sky Communities worldwide, but Borrego Springs is alone in being so close to huge population bases (Los Angeles and San Diego).
“To have a community so close to such large urban centers and accessible to so many people within a relatively short drive is something that is unique and serves as a place where urban residents can connect to the night sky,” said Adam Dalton, manager of the IDA’s Dark Sky Places program.
As defined by the IDA, a Dark Sky Community is a town, city, municipality or other legally organized community that has shown “exceptional dedication to the preservation of the night sky through the implementation and enforcement of a quality outdoor lighting ordinance, dark sky education and citizen support of dark skies.”
And the people of Borrego Springs take it seriously. Last month, at a regular meeting of the Borrego Springs Dark Sky Coalition, some members Skyped from summer homes in such farflung places as Ireland, Germany and New York.
They met for 90 minutes, discussing plans to again survey the community to make sure everyone’s outdoor lights are properly shielded, and to review a few complaints about lights shining a bit too brightly at one place or another.
They spent a good amount of time discussing a new, small LED sign that is going to be placed in front of the recently renovated Borrego Springs Performing Arts Center. The center’s directors had sent the lighting specifications developed by the IDA to the sign manufacturer, which assured them it could meet the dark sky parameters. But the group sort of obsessed for quite some time, worried about the sign’s size, height, hours of operation and whether it might lead to more LED signs in the town’s future.
They also talked about a flier that will be sent this year to residents reminding them to keep the lights low so the stars can shine bright.
And they reflected a bit on why they think dark skies are important.
“I think it’s our connection to the universe,” said coalition member Randy Baron, a retired optometrist. “We can’t lose that sense of awe and sense of our place in the universe. To have people living under a blanket of electromagnetic fog that prevents them from seeing that universe is wrong. And it’s a needless electromagnetic fog. People can be safe and have good lighting just as we’re doing.”
“When we look up at the stars, we realize how our problems and our issues are minimized in proportion to the universe,” added Betsy Knaack, the coalition’s president. “There is a comforting feeling we get when we look up and realize our insignificance. How would you like not to be able to do that?”
Coalition member Eli Hanks said she remembered going to a stargazing event in the desert years ago and starting to cry.
“It was overwhelming,” she said. “It’s very spiritual here. It’s amazing.”
According to the IDA, researchers continue to study the connection between darkness and health, and evidence now links light pollution with negative effects on the human immune system, behavioral changes in animals and decreased plant growth.
Baron said having dark skies everywhere is doable. “I think it’s very sad when people lose that connection to the universe that we are exploring every day with our science, and yet people can no longer see the stars at night.”
The Dark Sky Community designation has been good for the town’s economy. Astronomy buffs from around the world come to Borrego Springs and AnzaBorrego Desert State Park, which surrounds the community of about 3,000 people.
The state park regularly holds stargazing events, many of the resorts offer star-viewing party packages, and entrepreneurs with astronomy backgrounds offer popular “celestial tours.”
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California’s largest at 630,000 acres, has also been designated a Dark Sky Park by the IDA. That happened in 2018, making the entire region one of the largest Dark Sky areas anywhere. Anza-Borrego is in good company. The only other Dark Sky Parks in California are Joshua Tree and Death Valley national parks.
Dalton said Borrego Springs has really embraced the Dark Sky concept, and the association has been able to persuade the entire town, including its businesses, to comply with proper lighting.
“Borrego Springs has done some fantastic work with dark skies,” Dalton said. “It’s a great model of how Dark Sky Parks and Dark Sky Communities can work together to protect in a regional sort of way.”