Emery County's commissioners in 2026 are Dennis Worwood (chair), Jordan Leonard and Keven Jensen (ETV News). On 17 February 2026 they commended Valar 'for their transparency' when the reactor arrived and approved a support letter (orig-046); Jensen said 'your visions and values line-up with ours'. At an April 2026 public hearing on selling county land next to the lab to Valar (ETV, 9 Apr 2026), state lab director Jaron Wallace, answering a concern about truck traffic, spoke of the economic benefits and noted the land was zoned as an industrial park for such expansion; when residents asked about a buffer zone, the reply, as ETV put it, was that 'with these small reactors the fence line is all the buffer zone needed' (ETV does not say who replied), and Worwood and Leonard, who had toured the nuclear project at Kemmerer, Wyoming, 'concurred with Valar'. Jensen noted permits would still come from the county; a letter of commitment to sell was approved subject to two appraisals, and a 10-acre staging-area agreement with a liability waiver. Set beside the record: Valar's own safety agreement puts the accident-analysis boundary 400 m from the reactor, farther than the 20.6-acre lab's fence reaches (safe-014), and estimates up to 5 rem for a worker 100 m away in its worst-case accident (safe-013). The buffer-zone answer, as reported, is not what Valar's own analysis assumes.

• Emery Commission public hearing receives comments on the sale of property to Valar Atomics (ETV News, 2026-04-09) news “with these small reactors the fence line is all the buffer zone needed”
• Valar Atomics announce the arrival of nuclear reactor to Emery County (ETV News, 2026-02-19) news “your visions and values line-up with ours in this area.”