New Zealander Zachary Panther died April 1 in rural St. Edwards, Nebraska. He was found unresponsive in a Beaver Valley Pork Company hog unit. The firm is owned by Pillen Family Farms, owned in part by multimillionaire Nebraska governor Jim Pillen.
The tight-lipped governor has stonewalled all questions about the circumstances of Zachary’s death, refusing even to speak his name publicly. (During his campaign, Pillen also refused to debate any of his primary or general election opponents.)
Now his family’s multistate hog operation faces an OSHA investigation.
The Nebraska State Patrol and the Boone County Sheriff’s Office also are looking into Panther’s death. Neither has released any findings.
Nor has the Boone County Attorney, who said the autopsy he requested won’t be finished for between six and eight weeks.
Panther’s family is, of course, devastated; his death was covered by the New Zealand Herald.
A memorial is here:
Pillen's winning gubernatorial campaign in 2021 was buoyed by a river of money provided by the wealthy Ricketts family. He succeeded Pete Ricketts, scion of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, in that office.
Several months later, Pillen appointed Ricketts to the US Senate seat vacated by Ben Sass, who suddenly and unexpectedly retired to take a job at the University of Florida at a base salary of $1,000,000 per year, not including a $300,000 pool installed in his university mansion. (The average cost of an in-ground pool in Florida is $60,000.) Sasse's hiring (he was the only candidate seriously considered, elicited widespread student disgust.
In 2023, Nebraska's Flatwater Free Press published an exhaustive piece on nitrate pollution from Pillens hog operations. It noted:
...other Pillen operations, like a Holt County hog farm, have recorded nitrate levels higher than [Swine Republic author] Chris Jones says he’s ever seen.
The Holt County farm, called CRB Finish, had multiple nitrate readings higher than 200 parts per million between 2015 and 2017.
In 2016, it recorded a reading of 445 parts per million – nearly 45 times the EPA standard for safe drinking water.
“If you’ve got a monitoring well that’s 400 parts per million and there’s drinking water wells in the area, that should be a 911,” Jones said.
Pillen's response to the piece, written by Yanqi Xu, was: "Number one, I didn't read it. And I won't. Number two, all you got to do is look at the author. The author is from communist China. What more do you need to know?"
