The city of Bastrop may consider a new ordinance that will restrict outdoor lighting and allow the nighttime stars to shine big and bright deep in the heart of Bastrop County.

Last week, Bastrop Assistant Police Chief Clint Nagy proposed three suggestions the Bastrop City Council could adopt to manage light pollution.

These possible restrictions would make it a violation for someone to have a light fixture that shines light at least three feet beyond a property line, a so-called “light trespass”; property owners would not be allowed to emit light onto another property; and light fixtures that shine light more than 90 degrees above where the fixture is placed would be in violation.

“It’s more economical, it looks better and it doesn’t have glare,” Nagy told the council last week.

Officers would enforce these rules using handheld light meters, Nagy said. Fine amounts for violators have not yet been proposed.

Unnecessary light pollution has become a problem easily avoidable in rural areas across Texas, according to Bill Wren, who leads the McDonald Observatory’s Dark Sky Initiative and promotes astronomy-friendly lighting. Wren travels the state giving talks to communities about the virtues of dark skies and how communities can implement simple measures to limit light pollution.

“It’s about dark skies, not dark ground,” Wren said while he was in Bastrop last month. “We’re not against lights on the ground. Keep your own light on your own property. If everybody did that, problem solved overnight.”

Some of these measures can be as simple as installing fixtures that direct light toward the ground versus allowing it to be sent into the horizon — or into your neighbor’s bedroom window.

“When you see a bare light bulb from miles away, you’re just seeing wasted light, it’s shining off site, off property, and it’s not doing anybody any good at all,” Wren said.

Dark skies have become increasingly scarce in Texas, especially in West Texas, where vast rural areas that once enjoyed a bounty of natural dark skies have been undercut by the rise of oil and gas companies whose drilling rigs are illuminated by floodlights throughout the night. Many of these companies, such as Pioneer Natural Resources and Faskin Oil and Ranch, have adopted new lighting practices after negotiations with observatory representatives.

“You have to travel a long way from populations in order to see a naturally dark sky. They’re shrinking, they’ve gotten fewer and further between, and we’re doing our best to protect them,” Wren said during a stop in Bastrop last month to give lectures to the Bastrop Master Naturalists and Audubon Society. “Thankfully the National Park Service and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department have adopted Dark Skies as one of the pillars for conservation in addition to land and water and air and flora and wildlife.”

Bastrop’s possible lighting ordinance could be adopted as part of the city’s laws against nuisances under the Bastrop Building Block Code, the city's proposed land-use regulations which are still being developed by the City Council and consultants.