US: Large potato grower scales back expansion in deal with Minnesota DNR to protect groundwater

A large potato grower has agreed to scale back its expansion plans in a deal with regulators to protect sensitive groundwater and pine forests in central Minnesota. The president and CEO of North Dakota-based R.D. Offutt Co., Keith McGovern, said his company will withdraw all but five of the irrigation permit applications it has pending with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The company once had 54 preliminary notifications and-or permit applications pending. The company already had bulldozed around 4,000 acres of previously forested land into irrigated cropland. More