To the Editor:

I’m writing regarding “National Grid will install shields on LED streetlights that disrupt some residents.” Your March 13 article was interesting.

Where I live in Cambridge, people made the same complaints about the new LEDs. Even more interesting was the mention of Joseph Pallone. He was Cambridge’s National Grid contact, also.

My complaint about the LED streetlights is quite serious. I have epilepsy. The old streetlights didn’t bother me in the least, but a brief strike of light from one of the new LEDs throws me into a violent epileptic seizure.

It’s as terrifying as it sounds. I’m in the 30 percent of epileptic patients for whom medications don’t work, so my neurologist made it clear that I’d have to avoid LEDs. (Epileptic seizures can be fatal.)

Back when LEDs were rare I could, and I did avoid them successfully for years. But since the village’s streetlights were changed I’ve had hundreds of LED-caused seizures, and I’ve been badly injured in those seizures again and again, just going about my life in the village.

I told our village trustees about my LED-reactive epilepsy long before the streetlights changed. I tried to tell National Grid too, but National Grid wouldn’t talk to me, saying I wasn’t “the customer.” Despite knowing far in advance about the danger to me, the streetlights began converting to LED in late 2019. By early January, 2020, Mr. Pallone knew the LED streetlights were causing my seizures.

Like the people of Berne, I was offered a “shield.” What amazed us about that was that Mr. Pallone himself wrote that it didn’t sound like a shield would work for me, but didn’t have anything else. He also knew at the time that altering one or two lights was completely inadequate, because the LEDs keep me from getting to work and other places.

At night, I can’t look out the window. I absolutely better not step outdoors.

Our police chief contacted National Grid twice, asking that I at least be given an LED-free route from our home for emergencies and for medical care. We were led to believe this was actually going to happen, and that National Grid would re-install the former lighting along those routes, within weeks.

But after months of waiting, no changes and no word from National Grid, we made a Freedom of Information Law request. We saw documents where Mr. Pallone had written to the village that a work order had gone out at the police chief’s request, but “clearly the order will not be completed.” No explanation.

We wondered, uneasily, if someone had intervened to stop even partial LED reversal. I still don’t have a way to get to medical or emergency facilities. And I still suffer seizures if I’m caught off-guard by the streetlights.

Given this history, I was astonished that National Grid is still only offering “shields,” when they’ve known for years how incredibly serious the adverse health impacts from LED streetlights can be. In your article, Mr. Pallone seemed to imply that the problem is merely aesthetic, easily minimized.

As in: nothing a couple of shields can’t solve. Time will tell. My sympathy goes out to the people of Berne. Nobody should trivialize the streetlights’ ill effects, least of all National Grid.

MarieAnn Cherry Cambridge, New York

Editor’s note: Emails obtained by MarieAnn Cherry's family through a Freedom of Information Law request and shared with The Enterprise show that Joseph Pallone, a consumer representative for small-to-medium sized business and municipal customers with National Grid, had told Cherry's husband, Richard Cherry that, although “the only thing National Grid can do at this point would be to place a shield around the light,” the mayor of the village of Cambridge, Carman Bogle, was at that time waiting to hear back from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Lighting Research Center for “any ideas they may have for assistance.” 

Pallone also said that National Grid leaves all lighting decisions “up to the municipality because they are our customer of record regarding outdoor lighting.” Later, Bogle would tell Pallone that an RPI report “made very clear that what [the Cherrys] are stating is not the case,” and mentioned the replacement of five LED lights near the Cherry home. MarieAnn Cherry has contested RPI's conclusions, stating that they were made without her input, as were the five replacements made by National Grid, which she says have been inadequate. 

Emails between Bogle and Pallone also show that the police chief referenced in Cherry's letter, Sergeant Robert Danko, had ostensibly made requests of National Grid  for further lighting replacements in his capacity as chief public safety officer, but that, since these requests were apparently over the phone, his identity could not be confirmed. Bogle told Pallone that it was unlikely Danko would have requested a change since it went against the desires of the village board of trustees. 

Pallone said that the order would not be completed and asked Bogle if he should reach out to Danko to "let him know where we stand with this issue" or if she would prefer to. Bogle said she would contact him. After a later request from Danko, Bogle told Pallone that any request from Danko or any claim that Danko is attempting to contact National Grid is “absolutely not true.” 

National Grid spokesman Patrick Stella told The Enterprise that there was no work-order history associated with Danko because the veracity of his requests could not be corroborated with village officials, and that National Grid would not typically take municipal work orders from a police chief.

Stella also reiterated that residents of municipalities involved with National Grid should bring concerns about street lighting to their local government since the municipalities are the recognized customers that can request any changes.