Light fills the night on Tuckertown Road, in South Kingstown, facing northeast.

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

CHARLESTOWN

Light pollution never even crossed Lew Johnson’s mind when he moved to Charlestown, a rural community best known for its salt ponds and vast nature preserves.

Thick trees surrounded the Johnsons’ Old Post Road home when the family moved in during the summer of 1990, sheltering them from artificial light.

But then autumn came, and the leaves fell, exposing their property to the bright lights of a nearby business.

The last straw, Johnson says, was when his son, David, who had been learning about the stars at Charlestown Elementary School, asked him to go outside to gaze at the stars. The father and son couldn’t see much past their neighbor’s lights.

David turned to his father and asked, “Daddy, why can’t we move to the country to get away from these city lights?”

But Charlestown is the country, Johnson thought.

While discussions with his neighbor eventually led to the lights being turned down, the rude awakening propelled Johnson to learn about light pollution and “sky-friendly” light fixtures that prevent the light from shining upward.

Today, Johnson, a veterinarian, serves on the town’s Planning Commission. And Charlestown — home to the Frosty Drew Observatory, a private observatory built on town-owned land — is one of several communities trying to curb light pollution: artificial light that reflects in the atmosphere, causing stars, planets and other celestial bodies to dim amid a bright orange-red glow.

Often associated with large urban centers, light pollution is increasingly encroaching on rural communities such as Charlestown, much like murky smog hovering over cities. An estimated two-thirds of Americans already cannot see the Milky Way from their homes. At the current rate, researchers with Italy’s nonprofit Light Pollution Science and Technology Institute estimate that by 2025 no dark locations will be left in the continental U.S. from where to watch the stars.

But the effects of light pollution, researchers say, go beyond stargazing. They say it creates safety concerns and upsets animal behavior and human health.

NINIGRET PARK was strategically chosen as the spot to build Frosty Drew in 1988, because at one point the former Navy airfield was considered the darkest spot on the east coast between Georgia and Bar Harbor, Maine, says Les Coleman, the observatory’s director.

It was from there that a NASA-built Viper rocket was launched in November 1999 to collect dust samples from Comet Tempel-Tuttle’s burned-out Leonid meteors, making Charlestown the first and only spaceport in New England.

When Frosty Drew was built, “we had one source of light pollution,” Coleman said, referring to the cities of Cranston, Warwick and Providence, whose sky glow has effectively taken over the observatory’s northeastern skies.

A second, more powerful source has since sprung up to the west — Foxwoods, the world’s largest casino, some 16 miles away.

The effects of light pollution are even more evident at Brown University’s Ladd Observatory, in the heart of Providence’s East Side. Over-illumination and misdirected light have rendered the observatory virtually unfit for sky exploration.

The Seagrave Observatory — another private observatory whose roots trace back to Benefit Street, also on Providence’s East Side — moved to North Scituate in 1914 to escape the city’s light pollution. But the relocation couldn’t protect Seagrave forever.

In 2000, Bob Napier — a member of the New England Light Pollution Advisory Group and Skyscrapers, the amateur astronomical society that operates the observatory — lobbied state legislators to adopt a bill, now law, to regulate outdoor lighting on state property. He showed legislators a photo of a glowing, reddish-orange Scituate sky, reminiscent of the African sunset photographs that splash the pages of travel magazines.

A single tree on the far left stood out amid the low-rise vegetation, a sea of darkness further accentuating the brightness of the sky.

“It’s a pretty picture,” said Napier, “but when you realize what it represents, it’s a pretty ugly picture.”

Taken at 11 p.m., the photo (at a 45-second exposure) “shows the amount of light emitted upward into the sky by misdirected, overly intense light sources and excessive numbers of lights” from Providence and Johnston, Napier said.

“The clouds are illuminated by millions of dollars of totally wasted energy being misdirected into the nighttime sky and blotting out the beauty of the night — stars, galaxies, nebulae and even some planets.”

BUT LIGHT POLLUTION is about more than just dark skies and environmental concerns, Napier says.

“It becomes an energy issue, and it’s a significant safety issue on highways,” he said. “Any glare in your field of vision diminishes your ability to see dim objects.”

To deal with headlights’ glare, states are increasingly erecting “glare screens” — installing, for example, higher concrete barriers or modular screens, typically made of reinforced plastic and mounted onto the existing barriers. Georgia requires glare screens on all barriers on interstate highways.

Light pollution also disrupts man’s biological clock, altering, for example, the body’s production of melatonin, a hormone linked to sleep, aging and reproduction. Medical researchers have linked the reduction of melatonin to an increased risk of estrogen-related disorders, such as breast cancer. Researchers have also focused on light pollution’s effects on wildlife, documenting its disruption of the reproductive cycles of several animals and plants and of birds’ flight patterns.

Scientists and environmentalists often refer to the decline of sea turtles along Florida’s Gulf Coast as one of the most prominent examples of light pollution’s detrimental effect on wildlife. Sea turtles are listed among that state’s imperiled species.

Over-illumination deters nesting among adult female sea turtles, who seek dark locations to lay their eggs. And it’s one of the leading causes for hatchlings’ mortality as the newborn sea turtles, who “have an inborn tendency to move in the brightest direction,” become disoriented and head inland when artificial lights outshine the night sky’s reflection on the sea, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute. Often, these hatchlings fall victim to predators, succumb to exhaustion, or are run over by motor vehicles.

Several coastal communities where turtles are known to nest, such as Florida tourist hotspot Sanibel Island, have responded by adopting strict lighting regulations that limit and even ban lights in certain areas.

Nationwide, the issue of light pollution has been gaining momentum on the backdrop of energy conservation, fueled by growing public consciousness of environmental issues and a renewed push to negotiate a post-Kyoto agreement.

The Kyoto Protocol — the main international agreement to cut carbon emissions, considered the main culprit in global warming — is set to expire in 2012.

Simple steps, such as regulating the location and intensity of the lights and imposing outdoor lighting curfews, would reduce U.S. carbon emissions by some 38 million tons a year and save some $10 billion, said Robert L. Gent, chairman of the International Dark-Sky Association, a group based in Tucson, Ariz., that fights light pollution.

Last year, the U.S. produced 5,877 million tons of carbon dioxide, a 1.3-percent drop from the year before, according to the Energy Information Agency.

THE INTERNATIONAL Dark-Sky Association has been working for years with the U.S. Congress to create federal legislation to regulate light pollution.

The association and the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America are also working on a joint model outdoor lighting ordinance that towns could adopt.

But local and state governments aren’t waiting.

California has been in the vanguard, tackling energy conservation — and indirectly light pollution — since the oil crisis of the 1970s. Its transportation department has increasingly turned off highway lighting and installed reflectors and other passive guides to conserve energy. The department is now considering removing lights at intersections and other “points of conflict,” such as highway ramps.

That energy-conservation push earned California first place in the International Dark-Sky Association’s best highway-lighting practices ranking this year. Next on the list were New Mexico, Texas, Colorado and Arizona.

Although none of the New England states made it to the top-five list, Connecticut leads the area’s effort. The Nutmeg State already regulates most types of outdoor lighting and is now attempting to tackle residential lighting, said Leo Smith, a Connecticut member of the Dark-Sky Association board of directors.

Rhode Island adopted a law in 2002 requiring the state to install passive roadway guides, instead of lights, whenever possible. Any new lighting would have to be fully shielded. Shielded fixtures have already gone up on several roads. On others, it’s a hodgepodge of the old and the new.

Look for the new fixtures on Route 146, and parts of Routes 4, 295, 95, and the 95/195 connector.

Massachusetts has tried for years to pass similar legislation. In the absence of state law, some towns and cities have adopted local ordinances and bylaws.

Light-pollution laws at a national level already exist in several countries, including the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Chile and Italy. The United Kingdom has classified light pollution as a nuisance, subject to the same criminal penalties as noise and smell nuisances.

South Africa has also drafted legislation, the Astronomy Geographic Advantage bill, which would protect “astronomy advantage areas” by regulating activities — including commercial and residential development — that could cause light pollution, or any other activity that interferes with astronomy.

BACK IN RHODE ISLAND, the focus remains at the local level, with Tiverton and South Kingstown among the leaders in drafting light-pollution ordinances. Charlestown has said it will follow suit.

Light pollution “would be very hard to undo, but not so hard to prevent,” said Ruth Platner, chairwoman of Charlestown’s Planning Commission.

The town has already included lighting design in its site-plan review for new commercial developments, and is considering adopting a lighting ordinance that would set standards for the developers — and board — to follow.

“We need to be more educated about it,” said Johnson, the Planning Commission member whose son launched him on the light-pollution cause. “Right now, it’s a negotiation with each applicant.”

Town officials also hope residents — in a town where environmental initiatives are historically supported — will install “sky-friendly” fixtures voluntarily.

Yet town officials and residents at a Planning Commission meeting on light pollution earlier this year said flagrant examples of “sky-unfriendly lights” in town abound, from the Charlestown Package Store, a local liquor store, to the town’s own driving range.

Lights at the driving range, which operates seasonally and closes at 8 p.m., are turned on only when necessary, said Lisa DiBello, the town’s parks and recreation director. The lights were not needed this season because of the earlier closing time, since there was sufficient natural light, said Daniel Alves, who chairs the Parks and Recreation Commission, which manages the driving range.

The commission is expected to set the closing time for next season at its monthly meeting next month, Alves said.

DiBello and Alves said that no one had requested any lighting changes to the Parks and Recreation Commission, which would need to approve any change.

As for the Charlestown Package Store, manager Christoph Gross said he keeps the liquor store’s spotlight on for security reasons but is willing to discuss more cost-effective options.

“If I can help them by finding an alternative,” Gross said, “I’m happy to do so.”

marmenta@projo.com