Mishawaka Confirms Water Tower Lighting Policy

Mishawaka's illuminated water tower above the horizon.

Mishawaka will continue uplighting its new water tower all night without dimming during any late hours or during migration seasons. After I responded to its debut lighting scheme and suggested ideas for better water tower lighting, the water tower manager kindly replied. Below are excerpts from a letter from Dave Majewski, Manager of Mishawaka Utilities Water Division:

The lighting system which was being tested when you first wrote did not have the lights totally adjusted or aimed and luminosity levels zeroed in. Some of the programs have higher luminosity than the others but they were all put together to make the best presentation. At this point the lighting is working properly. Our protocols for operation are quite simple. The lights turn on approximately one half hour after sunset and turn off at dawn.

You had some concern about the dance of the lights which would be rare. Generally speaking, in conjunction with a holiday. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate our patriotism and Veterans than to have red, white, and blue highlighted on the tower. That is not lipstick on a pig as you state. We have programs for Notre Dame, Earth day, holidays, and local high schools, when they need to be celebrated. We have the flags of the immigrants who settled Mishawaka such as the Belgians, Italians, and Germans. It is not a billboard it is a celebration of our community! There will be no sponsorships.

I do disagree that the lights are oppressive.  From our perspective, lighting adds to the vitality, image, and identity of our community. This water tower is a landmark and is visible from the toll road.  We light all of our water towers and the new lighting is more energy efficient and has less stray light as these are now dialed in on the tower.

To date we have had no complaints with the exception of yours about the tower and the lighting. In fact, it has received many compliments on how it highlights our city. I am an avid outdoorsman and love viewing the stars and capturing photos.  Whether I am at a dark sky park or camping nearby, our tower is not the culprit.

It along with the lighting system have been thoughtfully designed by our engineers to have little or no effect on the environment and we have adjusted the lighting to focus on the tower and have looked at and adjusted some of the programs to lower the luminosity as you requested. I respect your viewpoint but as I stated above, this is how we plan to light the tower at this time.  

I appreciate the courtesy of Dave Majewski's thoughtful reply. I'm also glad the egregious lighting of the early days may have been dialed back.

However, I regret a tangent in which he lamented alleged woe caused by renewable energy infrastructure but dismissed known light pollution caused by city infrastructure. His assertion that "there is no true data on water towers and effects on bird migration" denies the copious scientific literature on the impact of light pollution (to which I had linked), even if most of the research is not water tower-specific. Yes, data shows uplighting does indeed impact bird migration and human health, and the Mishawaka light output is decidedly abundant.

Mine were the only unfavorable comments he had received. And so the water tower will shine on "as the identity of the city," polluting efficiently at taxpayer expense, unmitigated for any purpose.