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Light Pollution around Hoegaarden
Drogenberg Observatory is member of the IDA.
As one of the last communities in Flanders, Hoegaarden is positioned near a relatively dark area. You can still see stars and sometimes even the Milky Way is clearly visible with the naked eye. Since April 2012 darks skies are recorded using the Sqy Quality Meter. First measurement indicated an SQM of 20,40 which is acceptable.
It's the open landscape with fields that harbors few sources of light pollution. The horizon stretches to Jodoigne and Beauvechain, the 'plateau de Boneffe' must be one of the darkest places nearby.
From Hoegaarden and Meldert, one can still enjoy a pretty starry night.
Unfortunately, new light sources are slowly killing the stars. Time has come to install a Dark Night reserve.
How can we justify, dear politicians, to ask families to install energy-saving devices, while at the same time we waist so much energy every night on heritage, industry and public lighting?
Shutting down the highway lighting on the E40 has been one of the best decisions lately. The skyglow easternside from Hoegaarden has reduced considerably on starry nights. Excellent work Hilde Crevits! Looking at the NASA picture below (22/1/2012), the highways in Flanders are not visible while in the Walloon (South Belgium) clearly they stake out as red lines through the Ardennes forests.
This picture also tells us how exceptional we are in Europe. All surrounding countries are a lot darker, at least only cities are visible while for Belgium it 's the entire country !! Speaking of throwing public money in the air ... Safety, Road accident statistics and criminal activities are not any different from surrounding countries (on the contrary they can be higher).
A recent (Jan 22, 2012) NASA image taken from the ISS. Clearly Belgium is visible see for the cities detail the picture below:
 HOEGAARDEN
Light pollution in Hoegaarden is mainly concentrated in these few area's:
- Sports facilities (open air Tennis courts, football) these are temporary during evening training hours only.
- Industry (mainly the brewery and especially the Altenaken site of Inbev) uses very poor lighting that is emitting lots of stray light into space, also waisting energy and money that way. These two main light poluution sources are the reason why Hoegaarden can be detected on the NASA picture above.
- Heritage lighting (mainly the church). There is one permanent source, being the church floodlight. The church floodlight is installed in violation with the Vlarem II regulations. A timer would be a great solution.
- Uplighters on different locations ( one in front of City Hall). Again a timer would control the damage. Vlarem II specifies that the light can only be directed on the buildings, not lighting the sky.
MELDERT
Light pollution in Meldert is relatively restricted.
There are two permanent pollution sources, being the church floodlight and an extra floodlight used to light the KLJ site. Both of these lights are not conform with the Vlarem II regulations. These lights only use part of the consumed energy efficiently. The other part is wasted in the sky.
The football field is also contributing with inefficient shielded lights, but this happens only during evening training slots. During nighttime lighting is shut down and has no influence.
HOKSEM
With the E40 lights shut down, it has become clear how the Church floodlight is an enormous loss of money. Not that we don't like the lovely church, but an considerable part of the light and energy lights up the sky instead of the church. Not conform VLAREM II legislation. The light beam can easily be seen from the Waversesteenweg or from Hauthem. Again a timer would be nice to shut down the light between 12pm and 6 AM.
TIENEN
Tienen is the main source of light pollution for the wider area. With the new Industry zone Soutwest of the city, a lot of new lighting has been introduced. There is a long list of contributing pollution sources:
- floodlighting of historical buildings, wrongly installed or positioned (eg both main churches)
- lights for commercial signs (Carrefour, Mercedes amongst others)
- wrongly installed car park lights (Gamma / Aldi site)
Nevertheless, the one single contributing pollution source remains the Sugar Refinery. The extend of the outside plant light is tremendous. The light pollution can be seen from 20 kilometers away.
Picture of the pollution emmitted by Tienen Sugar Refinery. The lights are hitting the cloud layer above, creating a white-green glow above the entire city. The yellow dot to the left is "Onze-Lieve-vrouw-ten-Poel', the main church of Tienen. AT the very left of the picture is the industry area. New industrial zones always represent a significant increase in (light) pollution.
It is difficult to estimate how many Megawatts are waisted by the plant, for sure the impact on the night sky is very heavy.
There are multiple and also simple ways to solve this situation. Proper direction (down) of the lights will help a lot. Also installing multiple smalller, and better shielded lights will eliminate a lot of the stray light.
"Tiense Suikerrafinaderij by Night". Picture is taken from a distance of 7 kilometers. |
