By ERIN KELLY
Gannett News Service
If you're dreaming of camping under the stars at a national park this vacation season, you might be disappointed.
The romance of stargazing is disappearing as once-dark night skies fill with ''light pollution'' from development inside and outside the parks, according to a survey of park superintendents by the National Parks and Conservation Association (NPCA).
Almost 95 percent of the 130 national park units that allow overnight visitors consider dark skies an important natural resource, and 64 percent consider light pollution a problem, the survey showed.
''Protecting dark night skies in our national parks is as vital as protecting clean air, water, wildlife and the sounds of nature,'' said Thomas Kiernan, president of the non-profit park advocacy group. ''It is practically impossible to see the stars from most cities, and now clear night vistas in our national parks are literally fading from sight.''
NPCA is urging the National Park Service and surrounding communities to adopt lighting ordinances that require shields around light fixtures to direct light downward.
The park service should take the lead by retrofitting its visitors centers, hotels and campground parking lots with shielded, low-pressure sodium lights and requiring its concessionaires to do the same, said Dave Simon, who prepared the survey as southwest regional director for the parks association.
Congress should support the park service by providing funds to replace old lighting systems and by strengthening and enforcing clean air laws so that smog and haze don't cloud the night skies further, Mr. Simon said.
But the parks alone cannot solve the problem without the support of local communities, he said.
''The worst kind of light pollution comes from large, developed areas smearing light across the whole sky,'' Mr. Simon said. The worst culprits: parking lots, streetlights and billboards, which are illuminated from underneath, sending light into the sky.
Only four states -- Arizona, New Mexico, Connecticut and Maine -- have outdoor lighting laws, Mr. Simon said. However, cities and counties within other states also have adopted local ordinances.
