By Scott Edger
Little Apple Post
Earlier in the year, Manhattan residents began noticing a bluish-purple hue emitting from street lamps around town.
While many of us appreciated the K-State glow, it was clear the bulbs were defective and the light coming from them far too dim to provide safe nighttime travel on the city’s streets.
With the recent time change and fewer daylight hours there is greater need for adequate lighting after dark.
Evergy said in the spring that the problem was a manufacturing defect and that it would swap out the violet bulbs over the next four to six months. That was about four to six months ago, and hundreds still remain on Manhattan streetlamps.
Jared Wasinger, assistant to the City Manager, said he wasn’t sure how many bulbs in Manhattan have been replaced thus far.
“The timeline has likely changed,” Wasinger said. “They have identified many more that are defective in Manhattan and in many places.” Wasinger said he has not received an update from Evergy in some time, and that he plans to reach out to the company in the immediate future.
American Electrical Lighting, a division of Acuity Brands, manufactured the defective bulbs. A company spokesman claimed the number of defective bulbs was limited to “small percentage” and that they had not been sold for several years. AEL said that the “light output is in no way harmful or unsafe.”
AEL said the defective bulbs were sold between 2017 and 2019.
There is a phosphor coating on the LED. When the coating delaminates or degrades, the color is affected and the light takes on atypical characteristics.
Evergy initially identified a batch of nearly 6,000 defective bulbs. As the phosphorous coating degrades, more and more streetlights in the city are beaming with indigo illumination.
The bulbs are causing a purple glow in cities and neighborhoods across the country as dozens of utility companies received the defective bulbs. Duke Energy has reported the defective bulbs in its east coast markets and Tampa Electric in Florida has installed thousands of the LED lights.
The vast majority of the defective bulbs seem to have been distributed in the northern and eastern parts of the United States. Practically every mile of Wisconsin’s interstate system is illuminated in a faint purple haze. The glow has gone international as Canadian utility company Manitoba Hydro’s planned LED conversion in Winnipeg has reported the defects.
The lights are glowing purple in other Kansas towns, including Wichita, Topeka, Lawrence, Junction City and Marysville.
No word on whether or not AEL will try to replicate its error and market the bulbs to K-State fans.