NILES — A new bill signed into law could help aggregate companies complete work faster, and Niles High School students played a role in celebrating it.

State Sen. Kim LaSata, who represents Berrien, Cass and Van Buren counties, had her first bill signed into law Nov. 20. It streamlines the approval process for aggregate industries to move their equipment that crushes material such as asphalt and concrete for reuse.

Keeping with Michigan congressional custom, LaSata celebrated with dessert, in this case, scores of white chocolate and dried cranberry cookies from NHS’s ProStart, a two-year apprentice-style program meant to train students for the restaurant and food service industries.

While Rob Hayes did not celebrate Senate Bill 255’s passage with a sweet treat, he was happy to see it passed. He is on the environmental committee of the Michigan Aggregate Association and is a regional environmental and land services manager for Aggregate Industries, which has a location at 28862 US-12 between Niles and Edwardsburg.

Previously, when industry leaders wanted to move their mobile aggregate crushers, say, from one road project to the next, they had to notify the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes & Energy 10 days in advance by written letter.

Hayes said EGLE needed to be notified of the location change because mobile crushing equipment creates air pollution in the form of dust, which can affect the respiratory systems of people close by.

“If you have a plant that’s going to be there for years or decades, that’s fine, but a lot of operations have portable equipment,” he said.

These companies use the equipment to grind up aggregates, such as asphalt on old roads.

With each move, an air pollution permit was required from EGLE. A 10 day’s advance notice for permit approval became burdensome, especially with numerous road projects in the works during peak season, Hayes said.

LaSata’s bill cut the time of advance notice down to five and allowed companies to submit that notice online.

Hayes said the cutdown of advance notice will not lessen air pollution standards. All operations are still required to have a dust control program to maximize safety and minimize pollution.

LaSata was pleased to see her bill pass, allowing bureaucracy to be cut and production to be ramped up. The bill passed unanimously in the Michigan Senate and House.

“We have all kinds of regulations like that, even for farmers, to move things around,” she said.

Now, LaSata is hoping Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will sign a bill honoring Joseph Zangaro and Ron Kienzle, two Berrien County Courthouse bailiffs killed in a 2016 shooting. They are currently left out of an upcoming Michigan monument honoring fallen officers.

Unfortunately for LaSata, Niles’ culinary students will likely not be at the Capitol with more cookies if that bill is signed.

“I want them back,” the senator said.

Other legislators may want them to return, too. Senior student Makenna Fonseca said many officials took a few helpings of their cookies while she and six other students were in Lansing. All of them were eaten quickly.

“It was chaotic making the cookies,” Fonseca said. “There was a lot of dough to make. We made 150 cookies to take, and then we made even larger cookies, so that’s even more dough.”

To ensure all the cookies were made, Fonseca and other students came in before and after school the day before they took an early morning bus ride to Lansing.

“She’s put in more work, above and beyond what we expected of her,” said culinary assistant Erin Matthews, referring to Fonseca. “She was very giving of her time.”

Fonseca said she enjoyed not only delivering the cookies to LaSata, but seeing the Capitol for the first time. The group of students took tours of the building and sat in on a legislative session.

Soon, Fonseca and her classmates will prepare food for a Greater Niles Chamber eye-opener breakfast, the Hunter Ice Festival Chili Cookoff and for an event for Hope Grows, a Spectrum Health Lakeland nonprofit.

For now, though, she is taking a tour of Kalamazoo Valley Community College and Grand Rapids Community College Friday, exploring her options for a potential future in culinary school, driving down roads made possible by aggregate crushers.