Public information officer Karyn Lujan and project development engineers Stephen Lopez and Habib Abi-Khalil, all from the state Department of Transportation, were on hand at a May 28 meeting at Wildlife West Nature Park to explain the project and answer questions.

There were only a handful of people at the meeting, and most of the questions were about whether, after the fence was in place, horses would be allowed to pass under a bridge just west of Edgewood. Apparently, as long as adjacent land owners would allow it, the horses will be able to pass under the bridge.

That news came as a relief according to Ray Seagers, who is active with local horse-riding groups, as he and several others have been working with landowners to find a way to cross the freeway with a horse.

"There's a way through, so put the dynamite back in your truck," Seagers said to the other attendees.

An $882,000 project, the fence will run along the north and south edges of Interstate 40 from Mountain Valley Road east to N.M. 344 in Edgewood. There was $1.2 million in federal funding for the project, but after the bid was awarded, more than $300,000 of those funds were not needed, according to NMDOT officials.

This fencing project uses a less expensive materials than the wildlife fence in Tijeras.

Part of the Tijeras project was seven-strand, electric fence and a system of escape ramps for animals that somehow made their way onto the interstate. The current project, which was started in late May, also uses escape ramps, but they are engineered to use less expensive materials and will be made primarily of wildlife fencing.

On Old Route 66 there will also be two signs with yellow hazard lights, which will go on at 6 p.m. and off at 6 a.m., according to Lopez.

The signs will be near N.M. 344 and Mountain Valley Road. This also is a less-expensive version of what is already in place in Tijeras, where the flashing lights are triggered by infrared sensors designed to detect animals.

There will also be electromats — plastic and metal sections embedded in the road and electrified — at the eastbound I-40 offramp and westbound onramp in Edgewood to deter animals from crossing onto the freeway. While these will likely disrupt traffic to some extent, that phase of the project won't begin until about October, Abi-Khalil said.

Pedestrians who are stuck on the freeway and need to cross the mats will be able to push a button and interrupt the flow of electricity for about a minute. It's a necessary safety measure, according to Abi-Khalil.

"If you go close to it, you can hear it sizzling," he said.