That is, until two weeks ago, when Indian Ladder Farms manager and resident Tim Albright looked to the escarpment and saw lights coming from John Boyd Thacher State Park.

Albright said he called park management and was told that this was due to nighttime construction of Thacher Park’s new visitors’ center. But Albright is also concerned about whether the center could be lit at night for events hosted there.

The Enterprise was unable to get in contact with park Manager Maureen Curry for comment.

The new visitors’ center is expected to be completed by the winter, according to Eileen Larrabee, director of communications at the Open Space Institute, which is helping to fund the project. The center will include indoor and outdoor spaces, and will include exhibits about the park's cultural and geological history among other topics.

According to the International Dark-Sky Association, a not-for-profit organization created to protect night skies from light pollution, while light pollution can brighten the night sky and affect viewing the stars and planets at night, too much outdoor lighting can also affect wildlife as well, interfering with the habits of nocturnal animals, wetland wildlife, and migrating birds.

In 2012, New Scotland passed a local law that dictated a policy preventing “unreasonably bright artificial lighting” and reducing artificial light falling on neighboring property. Such requirements include having lights not shine directly onto neighboring property or into neighboring buildings, and having timers, dimmers, sensors, or photocell controllers to turn off lights when they are not needed. The law also states that lighting is deemed too excessive if emitted light measures 0.1 footcandle (a common means of measuring light) from the property line.

Jeffry Pine, a code enforcement officer for the town of New Scotland, said the law deals mainly with nuisances, such as a case in which a home’s security lights pointed directly into a neighbor’s home, one of the driving forces in passing the law, said Pine.

For a commercial property, said Pine, the regulations on lighting are mainly enforced by what is laid out by the town planning board in a structure’s special-use permit. But because the park is state property, the center did not have to obtain such a permit, he added.

In the park’s master plan, written in 2013, it is stated that at the visitors’ center — then in the planning stages — “outdoor lighting will utilize dark sky techniques” and “indoor lighting will use natural lighting wherever possible and energy efficient
lighting equipment where needed.”

The environmental impact statement written for the park’s master plan states that a new visitor center should “have no or minimal impact to the view of the escarpment from off site,” and “have no or minimal impact from lighting.”

At the New Scotland Town Board meeting on Nov. 9, Supervisor Doug LaGrange stated that Albright had called the town about the lights. LaGrange floated the idea of sending a letter to the state, as the town does not have jurisdiction over the park.

Town board member Laura Ten Eyck, who is a co-owner of Indian Ladder Farms, said at the meeting that she, too, had found the lights to be “relatively bright” during construction at night.

“It looks like the Starship Enterprise,” she said. Ten Eyck added that Thacher Park Director Maureen Curry had informed her that the lights should be on a timer, making her wonder if the consistent lighting is unintentional.

Ten Eyck added that there are homes on the ledge that shine lights onto the farm as well.

Town attorney Michael Naughton noted at the meeting that the new visitors’ center had gone through the motions of being approved by the town and had a public hearing session, but added that any additional changes should be made as soon as possible.

“The timing of it — if we’re going to fix it — would be now,” he said.