Aloha! My apologies for not connecting in time to testify in opposition to this bill. We worked very hard to pass Bill 5434 that was an improvement to our previous lighting bill. We are looking forward to it being in effect in 2026, finally, to help fight light pollution that negatively affects us, our native wildlife and night skies. I'm trying to understand all of this new last-minute information and will be looking forward to being involved through this process again!
Chair Cook, Vice-Chair Sugimura, and Committee Members,
I am writing to oppose Bill 109 (2025), “A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 20.35, MAUI COUNTY CODE, RELATING TO PROTECTING SEABIRDS FROM OUTDOOR LIGHTING.”
My name is Michelle Hester, the Co-Executive Director of a conservation and research NGO with headquarters in Kailua, Hawai‘i. I am an island and marine ecologist specializing in seabird conservation and restoration solutions with 32 years of experience.
The current Ordinance 5434 of Maui County Code, relating to protecting wildlife from outdoor lighting and preserving dark skies, is a major step in setting protections for seabirds in Hawaiʻi. The proposed amendment of Maui County chapter 20.35 would render the current outdoor lighting ordinance ineffective.
I highlight a few of many specific reasons to oppose Bill 109:
- Eliminating the requirement for low blue content in streetlights is unacceptable. Streetlights attract and disorient seabirds and turtles near roads and powerlines, creating documented areas of high risk and mortality. Enforcing the blue light standards in Ordinance 5434 does not endanger driving or human safety on streets.
- Paragraph A would exempt existing lights from the requirement of being fully shielded. Full shielding has been in the Maui County Outdoor Lighting Ordinance for decades; this would be a disappointing step backward.
The council should ensure that Chapter 20.35 of Maui County Code, Relating to Outdoor Lighting (WAI-11) are enforced and take pride in leading a global movement to create smart laws that balance the needs of human communities and precious ecosystems.
Thank you.
Michelle Hester
Co-Executive Director
Oikonos-Ecosystem Knowledge
PO Box 1918, Kailua, HI 96734
Testimony Opposing Bill 109 (2025) Amending Chapter 20.35, September 1, 2025
Maui County Code, Relating to Outdoor Lighting (WAI-11)
Dear Chair Cook, Vice-Chair Sugimura, and Committee Members,
My name is David Hyrenbach and I am a researcher working on quantifying light pollution and its impacts on Hawaiian Seabirds. Since 2011, I have quantified seabird groundings and mortality due to attraction and disorientation from night-time lighting. My lab has published three peer-reviewed articles documenting light pollution impacts on shearwater groundings in Oʻahu.
Urmston, J., Hyrenbach, K.D., Swindle, K. 2022. Quantifying wedge-tailed shearwater (Ardenna pacifica) fallout after changes in highway lighting on Southeast O'ahu, Hawai'i. PLoS One 17(3): e0265832.
Hyrenbach, D., Urmston, J., Swindle, K. 2022. Road surveys detect unusually high Wedge-tailed Shearwater fallout in SE O’ahu during the 2011 fledging season. 'Elepaio, 82(1): 1-5.
I am writing to oppose Bill 109 (2025) “A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 20.35, MAUI COUNTY CODE, RELATING TO PROTECTING SEABIRDS FROM OUTDOOR LIGHTING.”
While Bill 109’s stated purpose is to amend Chapter 20.35, Maui County Code, by updating outdoor lighting requirements that support public safety and community well-being while reducing light pollution, its passing would do the opposite. The current ordinance of Maui County Code, relating to protecting wildlife from outdoor lighting and preserving dark skies, was a major step in setting science-based protections for seabirds in Hawaiʻi. The proposed amendment of Maui County chapter 20.35 would render the current outdoor lighting ordinance ineffective. Below, I explain why this amendment to Bill 5435 is unnecessary and creates confusion,
20.35.060 General Requirements
A. This paragraph excludes existing lights from shielding requirements. All lights, as is stated in Ordinance 5434 need to be fully shielded.
B. This paragraph adds a requirement for streetlights to have a color rendering index (CRI) of 70%. This would eliminate all lights that comply with the requirement of less than 2% short wavelength. High Pressure sodium (HPS) lights have been in use for decades and they have a CRI of 25%-31%. Compliant LED lights currently available have a CRI of 50%. No one complained about HPS color rendering and there are no standards requiring high percentage CRI.
Kelvin values do not describe the spectral content of lights. 3000 kelvin lights have higher blue light content than the HPS they will replace and cause more distraction of wildlife and glare through windows. Current best practices state that outdoor lighting should be no more than 2200 kelvin and preferably 1800 kelvin. However, the real requirement should be, as it is in the current OLO, less than 2% content between 400 and 500 nanometers.
C. All mercury vapor lights were supposed to be replaced by January 25, 2017. Rather than deleting this line, the bill should state that mercury vapor lights are not permitted anywhere.
E. 1) There is no reason to delete the language in this clause. The change makes the requirement meaningless, if wall mounted fixtures do not have to have opaque shields and walls may be reflective.
2) The change of this clause is vague, fully shielding is already defined in the definitions and it needs to be emphasized here that lights must not shine over the ocean. A light may not be directed at the ocean to be visible from the ocean.
3) This change leave the Public Works Department (PWD) free to do nothing – as they have to date to comply with and enforce the existing law.
F. This change lets DPW do nothing rather than expecting them to be pro-active in moving Maui County toward a dark skies compliant county status.
20.35.070 Exemptions
A. 7. Statement should list the specific exemptions rather than vaguely referring to “Emergency services personnel”.
A. 8. This statement is unnecessary as it is addressed in the original language of section [6]7.
B. This statement eliminates the requirement for low blue content in streetlights, which are responsible for take of seabirds and sea turtles and contribute to raleigh scattering and degradation of the dark night skies. This exemption is unacceptable and unnecessary because Hawaiʻi Island has had the same OLO as ordinance 5434 for a decade and a half. Both airports and harbours on Hawaiʻi Island now have low blue content lighting and there are no complaints due to color rendering or safety.
In summary, the council should not approve bill 109, which would render ordinance 5434 ineffective. Rather the council should ensure that Chapter 20.35 of Maui County Code, Relating to Outdoor Lighting (WAI-11) are enforced and strengthened.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
K. David Hyrenbach, Ph.D.
HAWAI‘I PACIFIC UNIVERSITY
Marine Science Programs at Oceanic Institute
41-202 Kalaniana’ole Highway
Waimanalo, Hawai'i 96795
Tel: (808) 236-3563
Email: khyrenbach@hpu.edu
Aloha Chair Cook and Committee Members, I am writing to oppose Bill 109. This bill would weaken Maui's existing light pollution protections, so carefully crafted just a few years ago, and create more hazards for our beloved wildlife, especially seabirds and turtles. As an amateur astronomer, I know what a unique privilege it is to be able to enjoy the night sky with my family right in our own back yard. Dark skies benefit people and wildlife. Please continue to retain the strong protections adopted in 2022, especially the prohibitions on light on the ocean and the blue light limit for all fixtures, including streetlights. Thank you for your consideration.
Three years ago, the County created this protection for native sea birds, sea turtles, and more, from distracting and confusing shore light produced by people. The County Council is aware of the devastating impacts upon sea and bird life because you researched this for the original bill. This proposed 2025 amendment seems to strip away requirements to down-light and shield -- or to use animal safe lighting -- after January 1, 2026. And it removes any wording offering environmental control.
Hotels, ocean front homes, new construction etc. should have retrofitted and gained compliance by now. If they have not, they seemingly will never need to after January 1, 2026, according to this Bill.
With all that is being environmentally destructed in the United States right now, local environmental safeguards can be sustained. They must be sustained. The "ask" is minor to require new building using fully shielded lighting from now into the future. If the broader picture seeks to destroy any environmental protection, which the U.S. Federal Government is remarkably and devastatingly enabling currently, keep the island protections. These smaller scope protections should survive. It's our only chance.
If the birds go away, if the honu go away, we will eventually go away. It's not a huge ask to implement shielding and proper lighting. It's a solution, not a problem.
FYI. It is distressing to learn that all of theatrics, light show in chambers, were fraudulent. King fooled the Council and the public. What else is being misrepresented in this Bill? As Councilmember Paltin suggested at the time, this Bill needs to go back to Committee for further study.
The Washington Post
Democracy Dies in Darkness
Climate Solutions
Trouble in (avian) paradise: Maui turns off the lights for its birds
November 3, 2022
By Richard Morgan
In 1886, after meeting the inventor Thomas Edison in New York, Hawaii’s King Kalakaua enthusiastically began electrifying the grounds of his new residence — and within a year, 325 incandescent lights had the Iolani Palace fully aglow.
10 steps you can take to lower your carbon footprint
The king wouldn’t be able to pull off the same feat these days on Maui. Much of the island’s outdoor illumination soon could violate a new ordinance intended to help the island’s winged population. Fines could reach $1,000 a day.
The measure restricts outdoor lighting in an effort to keep endangered birds — and Maui has some of the world’s rarest — from crashing into spotlighted buildings. But Bill 21, signed into law last week, is ruffling feathers because its provisions also could keep flagpoles, church steeples, swimming pools and even luaus in the dark.
“People have told me they’ve seen birds falling on the ground in town, up country, all over the place,” said the bill’s author, Kelly Takaya King, who chairs the Maui County Council’s Climate Action, Resilience and Environment Committee.
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Maui is a veritable Eden for species such as the wedge-tailed shearwater, white-tailed tropicbird, brown booby, myna, kiwikiu and nene — the state bird and the world’s rarest goose.
The island also is home to some 170,000 people, however, and the new law is pitting the avian paradise against the human one. The ordinance imposes a near-total ban on upward-shining outdoor lighting and limits short-wavelength blue-light content. Similar laws are in effect in many jurisdictions nationwide to protect various local interests, including the night skies in Arizona and the wilderness in New Hampshire. Maui has a more complicated set of priorities.
The outdoor light restrictions effectively prohibit nighttime hula dances and luau performances — local cultural signatures. Indoor alternatives are impractical. “Customers do not want to be in a ballroom or enclosed facility — they can go to Detroit and do that,” wrote Debbie Weil-Manuma, the president of a local tourism company, in a letter of opposition.
At the same time, Maui is grappling with an invasive species arriving in flocks of up to 35,000 a day: tourists. Local officials are considering caps on hotel and vacation rentals.
Birds can be disoriented by artificial light, sometimes confusing it for moonlight, and end up slamming into a building’s windows or circling until exhausted. In a single night in May 2017, 398 migrating birds — including warblers, grosbeaks and ovenbirds — flew into the floodlights of an office tower in Galveston, Tex. Only three survived. This danger is why the Empire State Building in New York City, the former John Hancock Center in Chicago and other landmark skyscrapers now go dark overnight during peak bird migration periods.
One tall building. One dark and stormy night. 395 dead birds.
Yet, most mass bird fatalities occur in urban centers with tall buildings in high density. Maui is rural, and its kalana, or county office building, is only nine stories tall.
Jack Curran, a New Jersey lighting consultant who evaluated the science behind the bill, said the council “clearly didn’t do their homework.” The bill also requires that lighted surfaces be nonreflective, with a matte surface if painted. As the island is coated in compliant black paint, Curran joked, “Maui will wind up looking like Halloween.”
Even support for the regulation is fractured. “This bill does provide good benefits,” said Jordan Molina, Maui’s public works director, “but it doesn’t have to do so recklessly.” The new law, he added, will make his office the “blue-light police.”
Although the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not oppose the bill, it recommended creating a habitat conservation plan unless the county could devise a foolproof lighting policy.
According to public records, the council relied on a single, non-peer-reviewed study funded by an Arizona company, C&W Energy Solutions, that lobbied for the bill. (The county’s attorneys issued a memorandum in July warning of the “potentially serious conflict of interest,” which the council ignored.) And King’s efforts were propelled in part by conservation groups’ lawsuit alleging that a luxury resort’s lights disoriented at least 15 endangered petrels between 2008 and 2021, resulting in at least one petrel’s death. (By contrast, the Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project has focused on the continuing “depredation by feral cats,” which number in the thousands on the island.)
Still at issue are the measure’s conflicting exemptions. For example, lights at public golf courses, tennis courts and schools’ athletics events are allowed, but not lights at hotel-owned golf courses or tennis courts. Conventional string lights are permitted for holidays and cultural festivals but must be “fully shielded” for all other uses, including weddings. The county fair is also exempt. So are emergency services and emergency road repairs.
The law will inhibit TV and film crews’ night lights, such as those used by “Hawaii Five-O,” “NCIS: Hawai‘i” and “The White Lotus.” The latter was honored in October by the Maui County Film Office for giving the island national and international recognition.
To guard migratory birds, Philadelphia plans to cut its artificial lighting that can fatally distract flocks
King told local media that compliant lights are widely available online. But when asked recently for online links to such bulbs, her office sent just one — for a bedside night light that can double as an outdoor bug light, although it was unclear whether the bulb meets all of the ordinance’s specifications.
“Appropriate lighting is not available,” King then conceded. “We’re hoping it will be in the next few years. When you pass a lot of these environmental laws, you kind of have to go in steps to get them passed.”
As passed, the bill explicitly removed exemptions for field harvesting, security lighting at beaches run by hotels or condominiums, safety lighting for water features, motion-sensor lighting, and lighting on state or federal property — including Maui’s harbors and even the runway lights at its airports.
Council member Shane Sinenci supported the ultimate provisions. “Our unique biodiversity is what makes us appealing to both visitors and to residents alike,” the Maui News quoted him as saying before the final vote. “We are often underestimating the value of a healthy ecosystem and all the benefits that comes with it.”
The law takes effect in July for new lighting and requires existing lighting to be in compliance by 2026.
Please find attached Earthjustice's testimony in opposition to Bill 109, which we are submitting on behalf of Conservation Council for Hawai‘i and the American Bird Conservancy.
Aloha! My apologies for not connecting in time to testify in opposition to this bill. We worked very hard to pass Bill 5434 that was an improvement to our previous lighting bill. We are looking forward to it being in effect in 2026, finally, to help fight light pollution that negatively affects us, our native wildlife and night skies. I'm trying to understand all of this new last-minute information and will be looking forward to being involved through this process again!
Chair Cook, Vice-Chair Sugimura, and Committee Members,
I am writing to oppose Bill 109 (2025), “A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 20.35, MAUI COUNTY CODE, RELATING TO PROTECTING SEABIRDS FROM OUTDOOR LIGHTING.”
My name is Michelle Hester, the Co-Executive Director of a conservation and research NGO with headquarters in Kailua, Hawai‘i. I am an island and marine ecologist specializing in seabird conservation and restoration solutions with 32 years of experience.
The current Ordinance 5434 of Maui County Code, relating to protecting wildlife from outdoor lighting and preserving dark skies, is a major step in setting protections for seabirds in Hawaiʻi. The proposed amendment of Maui County chapter 20.35 would render the current outdoor lighting ordinance ineffective.
I highlight a few of many specific reasons to oppose Bill 109:
- Eliminating the requirement for low blue content in streetlights is unacceptable. Streetlights attract and disorient seabirds and turtles near roads and powerlines, creating documented areas of high risk and mortality. Enforcing the blue light standards in Ordinance 5434 does not endanger driving or human safety on streets.
- Paragraph A would exempt existing lights from the requirement of being fully shielded. Full shielding has been in the Maui County Outdoor Lighting Ordinance for decades; this would be a disappointing step backward.
The council should ensure that Chapter 20.35 of Maui County Code, Relating to Outdoor Lighting (WAI-11) are enforced and take pride in leading a global movement to create smart laws that balance the needs of human communities and precious ecosystems.
Thank you.
Michelle Hester
Co-Executive Director
Oikonos-Ecosystem Knowledge
PO Box 1918, Kailua, HI 96734
Testimony Opposing Bill 109 (2025) Amending Chapter 20.35, September 1, 2025
Maui County Code, Relating to Outdoor Lighting (WAI-11)
Dear Chair Cook, Vice-Chair Sugimura, and Committee Members,
My name is David Hyrenbach and I am a researcher working on quantifying light pollution and its impacts on Hawaiian Seabirds. Since 2011, I have quantified seabird groundings and mortality due to attraction and disorientation from night-time lighting. My lab has published three peer-reviewed articles documenting light pollution impacts on shearwater groundings in Oʻahu.
Urmston, J., Hyrenbach, K.D., Swindle, K. 2022. Quantifying wedge-tailed shearwater (Ardenna pacifica) fallout after changes in highway lighting on Southeast O'ahu, Hawai'i. PLoS One 17(3): e0265832.
Hyrenbach, D., Urmston, J., Swindle, K. 2022. Road surveys detect unusually high Wedge-tailed Shearwater fallout in SE O’ahu during the 2011 fledging season. 'Elepaio, 82(1): 1-5.
Friswold, B., Swindle, K., Hyrenbach, D., Price, M.R. 2020. Wedge-tailed Shearwater Ardenna pacifica fallout patterns inform targeted management. Marine Ornithology 48(2): 245-254
I am writing to oppose Bill 109 (2025) “A BILL FOR AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 20.35, MAUI COUNTY CODE, RELATING TO PROTECTING SEABIRDS FROM OUTDOOR LIGHTING.”
While Bill 109’s stated purpose is to amend Chapter 20.35, Maui County Code, by updating outdoor lighting requirements that support public safety and community well-being while reducing light pollution, its passing would do the opposite. The current ordinance of Maui County Code, relating to protecting wildlife from outdoor lighting and preserving dark skies, was a major step in setting science-based protections for seabirds in Hawaiʻi. The proposed amendment of Maui County chapter 20.35 would render the current outdoor lighting ordinance ineffective. Below, I explain why this amendment to Bill 5435 is unnecessary and creates confusion,
20.35.060 General Requirements
A. This paragraph excludes existing lights from shielding requirements. All lights, as is stated in Ordinance 5434 need to be fully shielded.
B. This paragraph adds a requirement for streetlights to have a color rendering index (CRI) of 70%. This would eliminate all lights that comply with the requirement of less than 2% short wavelength. High Pressure sodium (HPS) lights have been in use for decades and they have a CRI of 25%-31%. Compliant LED lights currently available have a CRI of 50%. No one complained about HPS color rendering and there are no standards requiring high percentage CRI.
Kelvin values do not describe the spectral content of lights. 3000 kelvin lights have higher blue light content than the HPS they will replace and cause more distraction of wildlife and glare through windows. Current best practices state that outdoor lighting should be no more than 2200 kelvin and preferably 1800 kelvin. However, the real requirement should be, as it is in the current OLO, less than 2% content between 400 and 500 nanometers.
C. All mercury vapor lights were supposed to be replaced by January 25, 2017. Rather than deleting this line, the bill should state that mercury vapor lights are not permitted anywhere.
E. 1) There is no reason to delete the language in this clause. The change makes the requirement meaningless, if wall mounted fixtures do not have to have opaque shields and walls may be reflective.
2) The change of this clause is vague, fully shielding is already defined in the definitions and it needs to be emphasized here that lights must not shine over the ocean. A light may not be directed at the ocean to be visible from the ocean.
3) This change leave the Public Works Department (PWD) free to do nothing – as they have to date to comply with and enforce the existing law.
F. This change lets DPW do nothing rather than expecting them to be pro-active in moving Maui County toward a dark skies compliant county status.
20.35.070 Exemptions
A. 7. Statement should list the specific exemptions rather than vaguely referring to “Emergency services personnel”.
A. 8. This statement is unnecessary as it is addressed in the original language of section [6]7.
B. This statement eliminates the requirement for low blue content in streetlights, which are responsible for take of seabirds and sea turtles and contribute to raleigh scattering and degradation of the dark night skies. This exemption is unacceptable and unnecessary because Hawaiʻi Island has had the same OLO as ordinance 5434 for a decade and a half. Both airports and harbours on Hawaiʻi Island now have low blue content lighting and there are no complaints due to color rendering or safety.
In summary, the council should not approve bill 109, which would render ordinance 5434 ineffective. Rather the council should ensure that Chapter 20.35 of Maui County Code, Relating to Outdoor Lighting (WAI-11) are enforced and strengthened.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
K. David Hyrenbach, Ph.D.
HAWAI‘I PACIFIC UNIVERSITY
Marine Science Programs at Oceanic Institute
41-202 Kalaniana’ole Highway
Waimanalo, Hawai'i 96795
Tel: (808) 236-3563
Email: khyrenbach@hpu.edu
Aloha Chair Cook and Committee Members, I am writing to oppose Bill 109. This bill would weaken Maui's existing light pollution protections, so carefully crafted just a few years ago, and create more hazards for our beloved wildlife, especially seabirds and turtles. As an amateur astronomer, I know what a unique privilege it is to be able to enjoy the night sky with my family right in our own back yard. Dark skies benefit people and wildlife. Please continue to retain the strong protections adopted in 2022, especially the prohibitions on light on the ocean and the blue light limit for all fixtures, including streetlights. Thank you for your consideration.
Please find attached Hawaiʻi Audubon Societyʻs testimony in opposition to Bill 109. Thank you for the opportunity to review and comment.
tests
I oppose this Bill.
Three years ago, the County created this protection for native sea birds, sea turtles, and more, from distracting and confusing shore light produced by people. The County Council is aware of the devastating impacts upon sea and bird life because you researched this for the original bill. This proposed 2025 amendment seems to strip away requirements to down-light and shield -- or to use animal safe lighting -- after January 1, 2026. And it removes any wording offering environmental control.
Hotels, ocean front homes, new construction etc. should have retrofitted and gained compliance by now. If they have not, they seemingly will never need to after January 1, 2026, according to this Bill.
With all that is being environmentally destructed in the United States right now, local environmental safeguards can be sustained. They must be sustained. The "ask" is minor to require new building using fully shielded lighting from now into the future. If the broader picture seeks to destroy any environmental protection, which the U.S. Federal Government is remarkably and devastatingly enabling currently, keep the island protections. These smaller scope protections should survive. It's our only chance.
If the birds go away, if the honu go away, we will eventually go away. It's not a huge ask to implement shielding and proper lighting. It's a solution, not a problem.
Aloha,
Kelli Lundgren
Resident, Maui, Hawaii
FYI. It is distressing to learn that all of theatrics, light show in chambers, were fraudulent. King fooled the Council and the public. What else is being misrepresented in this Bill? As Councilmember Paltin suggested at the time, this Bill needs to go back to Committee for further study.
The Washington Post
Democracy Dies in Darkness
Climate Solutions
Trouble in (avian) paradise: Maui turns off the lights for its birds
November 3, 2022
By Richard Morgan
In 1886, after meeting the inventor Thomas Edison in New York, Hawaii’s King Kalakaua enthusiastically began electrifying the grounds of his new residence — and within a year, 325 incandescent lights had the Iolani Palace fully aglow.
10 steps you can take to lower your carbon footprint
The king wouldn’t be able to pull off the same feat these days on Maui. Much of the island’s outdoor illumination soon could violate a new ordinance intended to help the island’s winged population. Fines could reach $1,000 a day.
The measure restricts outdoor lighting in an effort to keep endangered birds — and Maui has some of the world’s rarest — from crashing into spotlighted buildings. But Bill 21, signed into law last week, is ruffling feathers because its provisions also could keep flagpoles, church steeples, swimming pools and even luaus in the dark.
“People have told me they’ve seen birds falling on the ground in town, up country, all over the place,” said the bill’s author, Kelly Takaya King, who chairs the Maui County Council’s Climate Action, Resilience and Environment Committee.
🌱
Follow Climate & environment
Follow
Maui is a veritable Eden for species such as the wedge-tailed shearwater, white-tailed tropicbird, brown booby, myna, kiwikiu and nene — the state bird and the world’s rarest goose.
The island also is home to some 170,000 people, however, and the new law is pitting the avian paradise against the human one. The ordinance imposes a near-total ban on upward-shining outdoor lighting and limits short-wavelength blue-light content. Similar laws are in effect in many jurisdictions nationwide to protect various local interests, including the night skies in Arizona and the wilderness in New Hampshire. Maui has a more complicated set of priorities.
The outdoor light restrictions effectively prohibit nighttime hula dances and luau performances — local cultural signatures. Indoor alternatives are impractical. “Customers do not want to be in a ballroom or enclosed facility — they can go to Detroit and do that,” wrote Debbie Weil-Manuma, the president of a local tourism company, in a letter of opposition.
At the same time, Maui is grappling with an invasive species arriving in flocks of up to 35,000 a day: tourists. Local officials are considering caps on hotel and vacation rentals.
Birds can be disoriented by artificial light, sometimes confusing it for moonlight, and end up slamming into a building’s windows or circling until exhausted. In a single night in May 2017, 398 migrating birds — including warblers, grosbeaks and ovenbirds — flew into the floodlights of an office tower in Galveston, Tex. Only three survived. This danger is why the Empire State Building in New York City, the former John Hancock Center in Chicago and other landmark skyscrapers now go dark overnight during peak bird migration periods.
One tall building. One dark and stormy night. 395 dead birds.
Yet, most mass bird fatalities occur in urban centers with tall buildings in high density. Maui is rural, and its kalana, or county office building, is only nine stories tall.
Jack Curran, a New Jersey lighting consultant who evaluated the science behind the bill, said the council “clearly didn’t do their homework.” The bill also requires that lighted surfaces be nonreflective, with a matte surface if painted. As the island is coated in compliant black paint, Curran joked, “Maui will wind up looking like Halloween.”
Even support for the regulation is fractured. “This bill does provide good benefits,” said Jordan Molina, Maui’s public works director, “but it doesn’t have to do so recklessly.” The new law, he added, will make his office the “blue-light police.”
Although the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not oppose the bill, it recommended creating a habitat conservation plan unless the county could devise a foolproof lighting policy.
According to public records, the council relied on a single, non-peer-reviewed study funded by an Arizona company, C&W Energy Solutions, that lobbied for the bill. (The county’s attorneys issued a memorandum in July warning of the “potentially serious conflict of interest,” which the council ignored.) And King’s efforts were propelled in part by conservation groups’ lawsuit alleging that a luxury resort’s lights disoriented at least 15 endangered petrels between 2008 and 2021, resulting in at least one petrel’s death. (By contrast, the Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project has focused on the continuing “depredation by feral cats,” which number in the thousands on the island.)
Still at issue are the measure’s conflicting exemptions. For example, lights at public golf courses, tennis courts and schools’ athletics events are allowed, but not lights at hotel-owned golf courses or tennis courts. Conventional string lights are permitted for holidays and cultural festivals but must be “fully shielded” for all other uses, including weddings. The county fair is also exempt. So are emergency services and emergency road repairs.
The law will inhibit TV and film crews’ night lights, such as those used by “Hawaii Five-O,” “NCIS: Hawai‘i” and “The White Lotus.” The latter was honored in October by the Maui County Film Office for giving the island national and international recognition.
To guard migratory birds, Philadelphia plans to cut its artificial lighting that can fatally distract flocks
King told local media that compliant lights are widely available online. But when asked recently for online links to such bulbs, her office sent just one — for a bedside night light that can double as an outdoor bug light, although it was unclear whether the bulb meets all of the ordinance’s specifications.
“Appropriate lighting is not available,” King then conceded. “We’re hoping it will be in the next few years. When you pass a lot of these environmental laws, you kind of have to go in steps to get them passed.”
As passed, the bill explicitly removed exemptions for field harvesting, security lighting at beaches run by hotels or condominiums, safety lighting for water features, motion-sensor lighting, and lighting on state or federal property — including Maui’s harbors and even the runway lights at its airports.
Council member Shane Sinenci supported the ultimate provisions. “Our unique biodiversity is what makes us appealing to both visitors and to residents alike,” the Maui News quoted him as saying before the final vote. “We are often underestimating the value of a healthy ecosystem and all the benefits that comes with it.”
The law takes effect in July for new lighting and requires existing lighting to be in compliance by 2026.
Please find attached Earthjustice's testimony in opposition to Bill 109, which we are submitting on behalf of Conservation Council for Hawai‘i and the American Bird Conservancy.