A larger view is available.
150 employees of the Arizona Department of Transporation work in the Prescott Engineering and Maintenance District, which stretches from near Heber to beyond Hope, Arizona and from north of Chino Valley to Surprise.
The 2008 National Environmental Excellence Award for Environmental Stewardship was presented to the Arizona Game and Fish Department, Arizona Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Tonto National Forest, Aztec Engineering and Electrobraid Fence for the Arizona State Route 260 Project – Payson to Heber.
This project was chosen as the recipient of this award because of its innovative use of a variety of multifaceted methods to protect wildlife. The project used cost effective alternative fencing to direct wildlife to cross the highway at wildlife crossing structures, but then goes on to use military grade thermal image detection cameras to detect large wildlife attempting to cross the road at the end of the fences. The output from the cameras is directly linked to flashing road warning signs that provide real time information on wildlife that is in the road up ahead. Since putting in the system, collisions have been reduced almost 100%. The data collected from this can also be used to mitigate future wildlife-highway issues elsewhere.
James Laird of ADOT’s Payson office accepted the award for ADOT at the San Diego ceremony.
