LINCOLN — Gov. Jim Pillen sidestepped a question last Wednesday about whether he planned to apologize to an Omaha-based investigative reporter for saying her work should be ignored because she grew up “in communist China.”

It marked the first time Pillen, a first-term governor whose family raises hogs, had been asked directly if he planned to apologize to reporter Yanqi Xu of the nonprofit news site Flatwater Free Press.

Pillen has faced national and local criticism after telling Omaha radio station KFAB last month that he hadn’t read Xu’s reporting about groundwater pollution linked to Pillen Family Farms’ hog-confinement sites, and that he didn’t plan to read it.

“… All you got to do is look at the author. The author is from communist China. What more do you need to know?” the governor told KFAB.

The Flatwater Free Press story was based on data collected by the state about nitrate levels in groundwater, which showed that levels were five times higher than considered safe for pregnant mothers to drink at 16 Pillen hog farms.

Flatwater’s executive director offered Pillen an opportunity to apologize last week, calling his comments embarrassing and “dead wrong,” and chiding the governor’s unwillingness to respond “to the facts” reported by Xu.

Xu’s series on nitrate pollution in Nebraska’s groundwater, “Our Dirty Water,” has won national acclaim.

Xu was born in China but left the country in 2017 to pursue journalism in the U.S. Since then, she earned a master’s degree at the University of Missouri-Columbia, and has worked at the National Freedom of Information Coalition and the North Carolina Policy Watch (a sister publication to the Examiner, now named NC Newsline) before joining Flatwater two years ago.

Her boss, Matt Wynn, has said that the U.S. government recently awarded Xu a visa reserved for those with “extraordinary ability.”

The previous Friday, the governor declined to address the controversy when asked by reporters after a public appearance.

Last Wednesday, following a tour of a Lincoln manufacturing company, Pillen gave a similar response when asked directly if he would apologize.

“I’m 100% focused on all the extraordinary opportunities that we have in Nebraska,” he said.

Pillen repeated a similar response when asked a second time if he had regrets about his statement, which some have labeled racist.

The exchange came as a state legislative committee pondered whether to prioritize legislation next session about nitrate pollution in the state’s drinking water.

The Legislative Planning Committee met last Wednesday morning to hear presentations from authorities on groundwater and public health about the “past, present and future” of nitrate problems in Nebraska.

State Sen. Wendy DeBoer of Bennington, who chairs the committee, said the 10 members of the panel chose water quality as one of three topics the committee would explore during the interim prior to the 2024 session.

“It was a good topic to investigate because obviously there’s some really big red flags on how nitrates affect our health,” DeBoer said.

Daniel Snow, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln authority on groundwater, said that 85% of the state’s population gets its drinking water from groundwater sources.

Nitrate issues, he said, generally occur in areas of the state with heavy irrigation, sandy soils and shallow water tables, which allows fertilizer and runoff from livestock operations to easily filter into aquifers.

Snow said that only 5% of the state’s 550 public water systems require treatment systems for nitrates but that about 20% of the systems are required to test water quarterly to monitor nitrate levels.

One member of the Planning Committee, Elmwood Sen. Rob Clements, said his community was recently told to not drink the local water for a few days because the nitrate levels had exceeded 10 parts per million, the level considered hazardous.

Jesse Bell, a public health authority with the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said nitrate levels of 10 ppm or higher have been linked to a birth defect called “blue baby” syndrome.

While that standard is not related to other health issues, Bell said other research has correlated high nitrates in water to some pediatric and adult cancers.

The Flatwater Free Press reported that groundwater testing at 16 Pillen family-tied operations showed nitrate levels above the 10 ppm limit. One test measured 445 ppm, a level one expert told the news site “should be a 911.”

DeBoer said the Planning Committee will meet again in November to discuss whether it will choose a priority bill for the 2024 session. Besides clean water, the committee is also considering housing and child care as priority issues, she said.

Pillen offered some detail last Wednesday about his plans to address water issues in the next session.

He said he is looking at whether state statutes need to be tightened to prevent sales of Nebraska groundwater to other states, and he wants better “science and data” to help farmers apply fertilizers at the right time to avoid further nitrate contamination.

Farmers, Pillen said, have learned a lot over the years about better practices to utilize fertilizers more effectively, without harming groundwater.

“I don’t think there’s anyone in agriculture in Nebraska who doesn’t think we can do better,” he said. “We work really, really hard, like all Nebraskans, to make things better for future generations.”

This story was originally published by Nebraska Examiner, an editorially independent newsroom providing a hard-hitting, daily flow of news. It is part of the national nonprofit States Newsroom. Find more at nebraskaexaminer.com.