Why LED street lights for Westbrook? The Town of Westbrook can save more than a million dollars on its future street lighting bills if residents vote in favor of the retrofit project proposed by the Energy Committee and already approved by the Board of Selectmen and Board of Finance.

Our street lighting bills have increased 43 percent over the past four years, and this past fiscal year’s bill of $89,707 is second only to the electric bill for our high school. The project would involve retrofitting our 625 streetlights. The 102 decorative fixtures in newer subdivisions could have LED inserts, but the existing fixtures on other streets are decades old (many from the 1960s) and need to be replaced with LED fixtures.

New LED street light fixtures with less blue light than the early ones are proposed, and have less glare and more light focused on the roads, without spillover onto adjoining properties. Sample fixtures with different colors and light patterns will be installed on a Westbrook street for public feedback prior to any installation. Madison has already installed the types Westbrook has planned for (and the color as recommended by the American Medical Association), and Old Saybrook is in the process of installing theirs.

If the town does not purchase the existing fixtures from Eversource and retrofit with LEDs, the utility is scheduled to replace our streetlights with its choice of LEDs in the next few years. Then the savings are much less, since delivery charges will increase.

Installing our own LED fixtures will result in annual savings of some $77,000. Maintenance would be supplied by Siemens under contract, at an annual cost a fraction of what Eversource is charging.

I encourage Westbrook’s residents to vote in support of this important project on Monday, Dec. 11.

William Fish

Westbrook

William Fish serves on the Westbrook Energy Committee.