Environmental

LOGAN — A Utah State University department head and professor has been chosen as president-elect of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture.

Sean Michael, who heads USU’s Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning department, was chosen at the 2012 CELA conference held at the University of Illinois. He will become CELA president at the 2013 conference in Austin, Texas.

Utah State will host the group’s 2015 conference.

LOGAN -- A Salt Lake City foundation is giving Utah State University a $10 million donation to preserve programs focusing on environmental and wildlife studies.

SALT LAKE CITY -- Utah Gov. Gary Herbert's senior environmental advisor is leaving for a job with a ski resort company.

FARR WEST -- Despite a survey of residents that reflected less than 10 percent oppose recycling in the city, the city council has voted against authorizing a recycling program.

OGDEN -- Quality Bicycle Products has begun full operations at its new, environmentally friendly 85,000-square-foot distribution center in Ogden.

The facility, which provides bicycle parts, accessories and apparel to more than 5,000 retailers across the country, is just off 12th Street adjacent to Ogden Nature Center.

SALT LAKE CITY -- Hundreds of activists marched to the federal courthouse Monday to support a man who became an environmental folk hero by faking the purchase of $1.7 million of federal oil-and-gas drilling leases in an act of civil disobedience.

The city council has approved renewing the contract of a Salt Lake City-based environmental company, which runs a series of ongoing tests at the Bountiful Sanitary Landfill to probe for potential contamination of groundwater.

At a recent meeting, the council voted unanimously to retain the services of Environmental Resources Management Rocky Mountain, Inc. to continue groundwater monitoring at the landfill. The firm tests for 81 different chemicals or substances, according to Todd Christensen, staff engineer.

The city’s new contract with ERM calls for a testing program that will cost approximately $18,000 for the year. ERM Rocky Mountain has monitored groundwater results at the local landfill since 2002.