OURAY – Ouray became the first city on the Western Slope, maybe the first in the state, to install energy-efficient fixtures in all 100 of its streetlights.

Workers from the city and San Miguel Power Association worked all day Monday and Tuesday to install the new LED, or light-emitting diode lights to replace the old mercury vapor lights.

As he stood at the entrance to Ouray and shook the hand of Kevin Ritter, general manager and CEO of SMPA, Mayor Bob Risch said seeing the lights installed was the culmination of a long-standing goal of his since moving to Ouray in 1995.

“It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, as a retired astronomer,” he said.

The old street lighting, from foot-long glass bulbs, did not shield the direction of the light emitted, making it harder to see the night sky, he said.

The new lights will not only save the night view but will save the city money, said City Manager Patrick Rondinelli.

The overall cost of installing the new light fixtures is about $60,000, Rondinelli said, and will be split among the city, SMPA and its power provider Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, and possibly from the Governor’s Energy Office.

But the cost of operating the new lights are about one-tenth of the cost of the using old ones, he said, which also contained toxic mercury.

“We should see payback in about two years,” he said.

The old bulbs were inefficient, consumed a lot of energy and dimmed with age, Risch said.

Ouray isn’t the only city to try and upgrade its streetlights. A recent article in USA Today reported that at least 30 cities have asked for more than $104 million in federal stimulus funds to help make the change to LED street lights. Pittsburgh, for example, is looking at a five-year, $25 million plan to replace 40,000 streetlights with LEDs.