May 2017


 

Table of Contents

Meet the Interns!
PASER Road Rating
Clean Air Action Display
West Michigan Dashboard

Meet the Interns!

We are so excited and thankful to have two fantastic Grand Valley State University students helping us at the MACC this summer!

Madeline: “I have lived in Holland near Lake Macatawa my whole life. Exploring Michigan’s many beaches and forests has always made me curious about the environment. I started at GVSU in 2013, and was undecided about what I wanted to study. In my sophomore year I discovered natural resources management, and later added on minors in biology and photography. I plan to graduate spring 2018. After graduation I hope to get involved in community outreach and education around the environment.”

Tony: “I was born and raised in the southeast area outside of Grand Rapids. I’m now a senior at GVSU majoring in Natural Resources Management. I also have another gig this summer at the Sustainable Agriculture Project on campus, an organic farm focused on sustainable agriculture that is run by and developed for their community and students. At the MACC I will be helping with the Macatawa Watershed Project. My responsibilities will vary from volunteering at community events to going out and gathering stream data. My ambition is to work in the field with an international non-profit organization, helping build communities in the environmental perspective.”

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PASER Road Rating

Every summer the MACC drives around our area roads to see how they are holding up. It’s like a yearly checkup at the doctors office, but instead its for our roads. Annually we are responsible to report the condition of 50% of our federal roads; therefore the MACC rates our portion of Ottawa County one year and Allegan County the next.

This year is special since we will be rating not only the heavily used federal roads, but also our local roads which include seemingly countless dead-end neighborhoods which can make us pretty dizzy after a few hours. This summer we will rate close to 600 miles of pavement!

PASER stands for Pavement Surface Evaluation and Rating. It’s a visual survey of the condition of the surface of the road. It rates the condition of various types of pavement distress on a scale of 1-10. This system is used by most Michigan road agencies and helps us identify and prioritize future road resurfacing projects.

Road condition is entered into a computer system that is linked to a GPS navigation device connected to the vehicle. While an employee of MDOT is driving, he or she helps to identify the quality of the road and what rate it should be given. Once a number is given to the road, a MACC employee then enters that information into the laptop’s data collector software. Once back in the office, the data that was collected is then imported into RoadSoft. This software is used to evaluate road quality further. Each year, after rating is finished, the MACC reports all data to MDOT and the local units of government.

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Clean Air Action Display

The Clean Air Action Coalition is all about educating the public on how air pollution can affect our physical health as well as the health of our natural environment.

Clean Air Action Days are announced when our area will have higher than normal concentrations of ozone or small particles in the air. On those days residents are asked to take actions to protect their health and reduce emissions.
Help us get the word out!
The MACC has a traveling Clean Air Action display. To host the display at your location, contact Carolyn at culstad@the-macc.org and she will provide you with available dates.

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West Michigan Dashboard

Earlier this year the West Michigan Regional Dashboard, a dashboard that will track a common set of shared metrics on critical economic, environmental, and social outcomes in the 13-county West Michigan area, was released. Funded and supported by the West Michigan Prosperity Alliance, the goal of the dashboard is to track and share these 33 metrics as a regional dashboard so we can monitor our progress (or lack thereof).

Interested in seeing the metrics in a particular county?  These are also available. The MACC is an active member of the West Michigan Prosperity Alliance and encourages MACC residents to use this new resource. When doing so, please note that the dashboard is best viewed on a desktop monitor.