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Thursday, January 17, 2008

Wildlife Lights Don't Work

By Lee Ross
Mountain View Telegraph
    Part of a government project to keep animals from dashing across Interstate 40 in Tijeras Canyon completed in the summer of 2007 is still not working properly.
    There is a problem with warning lights on Old Route 66 at Dead Mans Curve and at the Carnuel exit. Two interstate underpasses there allow animals to cross between the Sandia and Manzano mountains.
    The lights are set off by cameras that are supposed to detect animal movement, but they may have never worked properly.
    The problem is the cameras are so sensitive that they "stay on pretty much throughout the whole night," according to Ted Barela, who has managed the project for the New Mexico Department of Transportation.
    The lights are just one part of a system designed to ensure that animals can safely cross I-40 in the canyon, where collisions between vehicles and wildlife like deer and bears are all too common.
    Planning and study for the fence was done by the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish and it was put in place by the New Mexico Department of Transportation.
    Barela said the animal detection system will work eventually, whether by camera or some other system, but it may take time.
    "We will get something that is functional," he said.
    The manufacturer, Econolite Control Products Inc., is scheduled to come to Tijeras to work on the system for a week, starting Jan. 28. There are seven cameras in all that will be worked on.
    According to Barela, there may be a problem in the way the cameras were initially set up, which was done by laptop.
    He said the laptop adjustments were done in the way his crew normally adjusts traffic cameras.
    "Econolite is saying it was done improperly," Barela said.
    Barela added that he hopes the cameras are working soon.
    "(Otherwise) people just become numb to it and don't pay attention to the flashers," he said.