SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A team of Utah and Wyoming researchers has received a $6 million National Science Foundation grant to study natural and human water resource systems.

Researchers will use the three-year grant to increase their understanding of environmental sustainability and long-term water forecasting issues in both states.

The CI-WATER project includes researchers from Brigham Young University, the University of Utah, Utah State University, and the University of Wyoming.

The award is from the foundation's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, which supports states' research, science and mathematics education, and workforce development.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Public hearings about a state plan to reduce air pollution are scheduled to begin in northern Utah.

Utah Division of Air Quality director Bryce Bird says the hearings will help people understand the proposed steps to bring air quality along the urban Wasatch Front into compliance with federal laws.

The hearings are planned for Wednesday in Provo and Salt Lake City and Thursday in Logan.

Bird says the DAQ will unveil a system that models different pollution reduction strategies and helps the state control harmful emissions.

Changes to improve air quality could include expanded emissions testing programs or tighter restrictions on things like wood burning that increase pollution.

This week's meetings are the first of 24 that are planned through the rest of this year.

KAYSVILLE, Utah (AP) -- Federal administrators announced a plan Tuesday to partner with private developers in efforts to speed up construction of hydroelectric power plants in Utah.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation recently completed a study that shows Utah has three of the top 15 potential hydropower sites in the West -- all along the Diamond Fork pipeline in central Utah's Spanish Fork Canyon.

Anne Castle, a U.S. Department of Interior official, said the first request for proposals aims to develop hydropower at Central Utah Project's Spanish Fork Flow Control structure -- a valve on the 8-foot diameter pipeline about eight miles southeast of Spanish Fork.