Highway neighbors fight to get attention of DOH
by Kate Shunney
Property owners who watched the four-lane U.S. 522 Bypass built before their eyes are now contending with highway lights that have taken the darkness of night away from them.
“I have not had a decent night’s sleep since the lights came back on,” said Jan Walker James “Whomever turns them on and off needs to be made to sleep under them!”
Local attorney Mark Garfinkel, sharing a photo of the night-time view of the bypass lights from his Fairfax Street home 300 yards away, joked that “They could hold the Superbowl out there.”
But it’s far from a joking matter, and Garfinkel and several neighbors have been persistent in keeping the issue in front of officials from the West Virginia Division of Highways (DOH) and the Morgan County Commission.
Their message is clear – the lighting contractors hired to work on the 522 Bypass installed high mast lighting towers without the proper shields or locations, creating a daily burden on people who live along those sections of the new highway.
“As the Commission and many residents along the Bypass have already voiced to Mr. Burns and others, the intense light spillage, glare and skyglow of the series of these towers has been unexpected, disturbing and shocking even to many residents far outside the ROW,” Garfinkle wrote to J. Lee Thorne, District Manager for the West Virginia DOH.
Referencing Jon P. Burns, DOH Construction Engineer for District 5, Garfinkle wrote in his January 26, 2025 letter, “Even Mr. Burns was surprised there was no shielding installed and he agreed to shut off the lights and investigate the matter.”
The bypass lights in that area were shut off immediately after a November 2024 County Commission meeting with Burns in attendance.
The lights were turned back on shortly after and have remained on, even though the Division of Highways did not open the bypass to traffic as predicted in December.
During the November county meeting, Burns indicated that the lighting subcontractor, working under bypass contractor Trumbull Corporation, possibly had not installed or had improperly installed light shields that were supposed to direct illumination onto the highway and away from homes along the route.
Garfinkle and other neighbors have asked the DOH to turn the lights off immediately and keep them off until they figure out how the lights should be shielded or replaced, especially as there is no vehicle traffic on the 3.4-mile bypass.
Garfinkle, on behalf of the nearby neighbors, has continued to question state officials about the need for the high mast lighting towers.
“While residents will undoubtedly welcome any such mitigation, we continue to believe that there is no justifiable safety or other need for the series of HMLTs (at least the Level II HMTLs) which you allowed to be installed along one side of the roadway sections between Fairfax Street and Johnson’s Mill Road. I note that these sections have adequate on and off ramps, while in other places on the Bypass towards the south, there are actual cross traffic intersections with no lighting installed whatsoever,” Garfinkle wrote on November 25.
Jim Bailey, another neighbor affected by the lighting, got on the February 6 agenda of the Morgan County Commission to remind elected officials that local people are living with the daily impact of the overly bright lights on a highway that’s not being used.
“The biggest concern is we have a group of residents who are greatly affected by the lights,” Bailey told county officials.
“We’ve been ghosted,” he said.
“A lot of residents are getting upset because we feel like we’re basically being ignored.”
“These lights light up like a football stadium…it completely illuminates their yards,” Bailey pointed out.
Commissioner Joel Tuttle prefaced his response by saying the County Commission, since the 1930’s, hasn’t had anything to do with highway maintenance or construction. He said their only role would be to act as “a liaison” to state officials to prompt answers.
“I’m also disheartened by the lack of response,” Tuttle said.
Commissioner Sean Forney said he, too, had brought up the lighting concerns and sought information from state sources.
“I haven’t gotten any response either,” Forney said. “I shared the concerns and followed up and it’s been crickets.”
Forney said the DOH seems “selective about what they are responsive to.”
Bailey shared that one older neighbor has had to buy blackout curtains just to keep interior rooms from getting daylight-level brightness at night.
“We don’t know what else to do when you don’t hear from anyone,” Bailey said.
Vonda Clipp and her husband live in the first block of Fairview Drive. They’ve had a series of issues related to the building of the bypass, from the loss of a water line to massive tree cutting, major dust and noise.
The lights are now a part of their daily lives.
“We have no dark spots in our yard anymore,” Clipp said.
The couple has lived there for 12 years, and had no idea what the bypass would bring to their property.
“If we would’ve known what it was going to look like, we wouldn’t have taken a second look at this place,” she said on Monday.
Clipp said it does appear that bypass lighting contractors added a kind of deflector on the high mast lights, but it hasn’t brought regular night-time darkness back. She said the yard always looks like it has just snowed – a light glow that doesn’t go away.
“Our yard is bright. It just takes away from our enjoyment,” she said.
Clipp and Bailey have also voiced concern about the traffic flow around that northern end of the bypass, saying it’s out of whack now and will get worse once traffic is on the bypass.
Both, along with Garfinkle and others in their neighborhood and along the bypass route, have voiced the same feeling about the lights and other daily impacts of the bypass construction that they’ve spoken up about to DOH officials and contractors.
“They just don’t care that it affects people,” said Clipp.
Commissioners agreed that it’s frustrating to have no response to questions on the issue, and Commission President Bill Clark said he had no problem with the idea of raising the lighting concerns once again with the DOH to ask for any update or some kind of response.
