New DEQ director named

BOISE (AP) - Gov. Butch Otter has named a replacement for the outgoing environmental quality director.

Otter has announced that Curt Fransen will take over for Toni Hardesty, who recently resigned as the director of the Idaho Department of Environment Quality.

Fransen has been deputy director of DEQ since 2007.

Hardesty has been director of the agency since 2004 and leaves Friday to become the Idaho director of The Nature Conservancy.