By 2025 a large company was talking with Carbon County about building a factory on county land near Ridge Road [1, 2]. Its name didn’t appear in the commission agendas and minutes DIG reviewed until August 19, 2026 [1]. On May 6, 2026, the county commission approved buying more land near the park: 120 acres with 240 water shares for $2 million, and about 207 more acres, from a seller the minutes call 2C’s Properties, for a price that neither the minutes nor the deed states [3, 4, 5]. Among the reasons given for the 120-acre purchase was that it “will maximize the number of companies that could locate here.” [3] No one named the company or said it was under a confidentiality agreement [3, 6, 0:39:30 to 0:45:05].
Thirteen days later, the minutes of Commissioner Larry Jensen’s update to the economic development board said the company wanted two of the parcels. The board’s minutes called the company “the NDA,” a nickname for the company under the agreement: “The county is in the process of purchasing two more parcels north of their current property. The NDA wants to enter into a purchase agreement for those two parcels.” [7]
1. “We’ve signed non disclosure agreements,” and the minutes left it out
At the commission meeting on February 4, 2026, Jensen talked about the companies the county was working with. The county’s own video records him saying: “Couple of them we can’t talk about. We’ve signed non disclosure agreements but they’re significant.” [8, 0:19:03 to 0:19:58]
The official minutes of that meeting summarize his remarks: “There are four projects that are promising and significant.” [9] The agreements are not mentioned in his remarks as the minutes record them. In the commission agendas and minutes from November 2022 to October 7, 2026 that DIG reviewed, no confidentiality agreement was put on an agenda. The first mention in the minutes came on August 19, 2026, when Jensen announced that the agreement had been lifted and that Georgia-Pacific had canceled its plans [1].
The minutes record that “Georgia Pacific has canceled plans to build a $600 million wallboard factory on county-owned land.” [1] The county had taken title to the last two parcels six days earlier, on August 13 [5]. Jensen said the company had told the county of its decision that morning [10, 0:01:07 to 0:01:20].
In August 2025 the board heard that the NDA project had grown “to nearly $600 million,” the same size as the Georgia-Pacific plant [11, 1]. No record DIG found says in so many words that the company the board called “the NDA” was Georgia-Pacific, and the county had more than one such agreement [8, 12]. But the details match: the same $600 million size, and a factory on county land [11, 7, 1]. Jensen gave one of the reasons for the confidentiality: the factory “would close two facilities in California. And they did not want for employees at those two facilities to hear about this prematurely.” [10, 0:02:26 to 0:02:45]
In other words, by Jensen’s own account, part of the point of the secrecy was to keep workers at two California plants from learning too soon that the new factory would close their plants. Meanwhile the county had already committed to buying the land. At the meeting where it did so, residents weren’t told which company it was, or that it was under a confidentiality agreement [3, 6, 0:39:30 to 0:45:05].
In October 2022, when the county signed a confidentiality agreement with an earlier prospect, it put the agreement on a public agenda, named the company, and voted on it [13, 14].
2. The board elected officials were told they could no longer serve on
Much of what the public knows about these deals comes from one place: the minutes of the Carbon County Community Economic Development Board, a county advisory board. Jensen was a member, and he gave the “economic update” at almost every meeting [15, 16, 17, 18, 19].
In April 2025, the state’s Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity came to that board and “emphasized the importance of documenting our grant processes and successes.” All three county commissioners were there [20].
In January 2026 the county got a $600,000 state grant for a road into the park [9, 21]. While the county worked out how to track the grant, the commission’s minutes say, it was “told by the Governor’s office that elected officials can no longer serve on this board.” Jensen explained why at the meeting: “There were issues with elected officials who may have had too much influence on the board.” A county road official took his seat [9, 21].
But Jensen kept coming. From February 2026 on, the board’s minutes list him as a guest (“Others Present”) rather than a member [7, 22, 12, 23, 24]. He kept giving the economic update, including the May 2026 report about the parcels “the NDA” wanted. As of October 24, 2026, the commission’s page on the county website still lists the “Community Economic Development Board” among Jensen’s assignments [25].
Nothing in the record says a commissioner can’t attend or brief the board, and nothing shows him voting there after January [7, 26, 22, 12, 23, 24]. But the reason he gave for the change was that “there were issues with elected officials who may have had too much influence on the board.” [21] Four months later, the board’s news about the county’s land deals still came from him [7]. No record DIG found shows whether that affected anything the board decided. You decide.
3. What Jensen told the board, and when the public could read it
The people who could follow these plans as they happened were the few in the board’s meeting room. The meetings were open to anyone, but only to those who knew they were happening. Anyone relying on the board’s posted minutes found out weeks or months later, and in at least one case only after Jensen had announced that Georgia-Pacific had canceled.
The economic development board meets in a suite at the county administration building in Price [25, 27]. Its agendas list just one line for Jensen: “Economic update - Larry Jensen.” [27, 28, 29, 30, 31] What he said first appears online when the board’s minutes are posted on the state’s public notice website. That has often taken months. State law also requires an audio recording of each meeting to be available within three business days, and DIG hasn’t established whether the board keeps one [32].
Here is what the board’s minutes record he told it, and when anyone outside the room could read it:
- March 2025. After the county bought the Ridge Road land, “all of sudden we had several people looking to buy.” The county had “about 900 shares of water available.” [15] Minutes posted: May 19, 2025, two months later [33].
- June 2025. The county was “working on answering questions for the NDA,” a $400 to $500 million project. And the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) had “reached out to Larry and Shanny” (the county’s economic development director, Shanny Wilson) about using the $2.85 million federal grant meant for buying land for something else, with the county’s “first preference being road development.” [2, 34] (The road plan came up in public two weeks later: on July 2, 2025, Jensen told the commission the county had “decided to accept the money and use it to build the road into the property,” and the commission approved a contract for the road’s environmental review [35].) On October 7, 2026, the commission heard that HUD had approved moving the money to the park road; the minutes record no vote on it [34]. Minutes posted: November 17, 2025, five months later [36].
- July 2025. The company had “narrowed their options down to two sites and Carbon County is one of them.” [18] Minutes posted: January 15, 2026, six months later [37].
- December 2025. The company was “80% sure they are coming to the county,” with “extended purchase agreements until December of next year.” [19] Minutes posted: February 4, 2026, seven weeks later [38].
- February 2026. His first update after leaving his seat. He spoke about Valar Atomics, a nuclear company expanding from California, and said that if Valar expanded to Carbon County, then with “the other 2 NDA’s,” the projects “could provide $4-5 billion in taxable value.” [12] Meeting notice posted: May 18, 2026, three months after the meeting [28].
- April 2026. Altigen planned a 1,200-acre “Jurassic Spark” gas power plant and data center project east of Wellington, with a gas pipeline across federal land. Of Valar Atomics, he stressed “the critical need for public education sessions to address potential concerns before Valor [sic] attempts to purchase property, which would be a public process.” [22] Meeting notice posted: late June 2026, two months after the meeting [29].
- May 2026. “The NDA wants to enter into a purchase agreement for those two parcels.” He also called “the constant pushback” one of the county’s challenges [7]. The board approved these minutes in June. Minutes posted: September 14, 2026, almost four weeks after Jensen announced that Georgia-Pacific had canceled [1, 27].
- June 2026. Valar was “navigating the process to lease or purchase 640 acres of land in Carbon County” and being “careful because of what’s happening in Box Elder.” The board said public concerns about data centers are “often based on misinformation.” [23] Minutes posted: October 19, 2026, four months later [30].
- August 2026. He announced a Valar Atomics town hall [24]. Meeting notice posted: September 14, 2026, almost four weeks after the meeting [31].
Where else could a resident have found these meetings? DIG checked the county’s own website on October 25, 2026. Its meetings page says the county “complies with the Utah Open and Public Meetings Act” and points to two places: the state notice website and the county’s own meeting database [39]. The county’s database doesn’t list the economic development board at all. Among its ten meeting types are the commission, the planning commission and even a weed board, but not this one [40]. The board’s page on the county website names its members but posts no agendas or minutes [41]. Of the places DIG checked online, the state website is the only one where this board’s meetings are announced. As of October 24, 2026, the state website listed notices for nine of its 2026 meetings [42]. Three appeared only after the meetings had happened, and two more went up less than 24 hours before their meetings [27, 28, 29, 31, 43].
Utah’s open meetings law sets rules for advance notice and for posting minutes [44, 32]; whether this board met them is a question for a lawyer, and one DIG put to the county on October 26, 2026. As of October 24, 2026, the board’s notices on the state website still list Jensen as one of its contacts, in a contact list unchanged since at least March 2025 [31, 33].
4. Where the money came from
The commission’s first public vote on the Ridge Road land that DIG found came on September 6, 2023, on a “water purchase agreement” with the Campbell family [45]. Jensen said the county had set aside “1.4 million dollars” of federal Covid relief money “for water and land purchases,” and that “we have a large business that would like to locate on this property.” He didn’t name it; that summer the board’s minutes tied the land to an earlier hydrogen prospect the records call SCS [17]. The vote passed [45]. State spending records show the county paid the $1.4 million the next day [46]. The county finished buying the land in late 2024, for $4.25 million in total, according to state spending records [46].
The county’s federal Covid relief accounting. Carbon County received federal pandemic-relief money under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) [47, 48]. The state’s public spending database, Transparent Utah, shows these entries in the county’s books:
- The $1,400,000 water payment in September 2023 was coded to “ARPA EXPENDITURES.” [46, 49]
- The $2,851,171.23 land payment was entered on that ARPA account on November 18, 2024, reversed the same day, and re-booked on December 27, 2024 as a land purchase [46, 49].
What the county told Treasury is different. Counties must report to the U.S. Treasury how they spent this money, and Treasury publishes the reports. None of the county’s reports to Treasury, as Treasury publishes them, lists a land or water-share purchase; its report on the second fund gives only spending categories [47, 48].
For the land, the record is clearer. On August 21, 2024, after deciding not to take the federal grant, the commission voted in public to buy it with “our funds,” under an agenda item on “using Carbon County reserves,” and the payment ended up on a ledger line titled “LAND PURCHASE (CAMPBELL).” [46, 50, 49, 51]
For the water, the county’s books and its federal reports do not match on their face. The county’s federal audit for 2023, the year of the water payment, lists only one ARPA fund as spent that year: its second fund, $2,091,031 that a county may use “for any governmental purpose other than a lobbying activity.” [52, 53, 54] The county reported that fund to Treasury only under the category Treasury calls “general government operations.” [48, 52] Only the county’s own ledger can show which money paid for the water.
There is one more gap in the public record. Local governments that spend federal money above a set amount must have a yearly single audit of it and file it with the federal government’s Audit Clearinghouse [55, 56]. As of October 26, 2026, the clearinghouse lists Carbon County’s audits for 2023 and for 2025, but none for 2024, the year the $2.85 million land payment was entered on the ARPA line, reversed the same day and re-booked as a land purchase [54, 57]. The county’s 2025 audit does refer to a 2024 audit: it lists one 2024 finding, that the county did not present its fraud risk assessment to the commission on time, as the State Auditor requires, and says of federal awards, “No findings noted in the prior year.” [58] On October 26, 2026, DIG asked the county why the 2024 audit is not on file with the clearinghouse. None of the county’s filed audits reports a finding on its ARPA money [54]. Whether these entries followed federal rules is a question for the county.
What Carbon County has bought for the Ridge Road park, 2023-2026 [3, 4, 5, 17, 46, 59, 60, 61, 62]:
| When | What | Acres | Water shares | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-2024 | Three parcels from a family trust | 308 | 550 (as offered in July 2023) | about $4.25 million (state records) |
| 2025 | A half-acre for a road | 0.5 | none | not in minutes or deed |
| 2026 | One parcel (02-1806) | 120 | 240 | $2,000,000 (approved) |
| 2026 | Two parcels (seller called 2C’s Properties in the minutes) | 207 | none | not in minutes or deed |
| Total | 635 | 790 | $6.25 million known; two prices unknown |
Was the price fair? For the 2023-2024 land, it’s hard to say without an appraisal. Water is valuable here. In September 2024 the commission approved buying the land for $2,850,000, including 200 Scofield water shares [63]. If the $1.4 million paid in 2023 bought only water (the 350 of the 550 shares that the 2024 land deal didn’t include), the county’s own numbers suggest it paid about $4,000 a water share [17, 46, 63]. Take the water out, and the land cost about $6,667 an acre, less than Utah’s average for irrigated cropland ($7,760 an acre in 2023) but well above its average for non-irrigated cropland ($1,760 an acre that year) [63, 64]. With its water included, the land cost about $13,800 an acre, about 1.8 times the irrigated average [46, 64].
5. What the record shows in Jensen’s favor
Jensen has been the park’s champion. From 2024 through 2026, he presented 14 of the 22 park items that came before the commission and made or seconded the motion on 17 of the 20 that went to a vote. All passed, with no recorded “nay.” [65]
His goal is a real one: replacing “lost revenue from the loss of coal mines and the power plant.” [50]
DIG sent its questions on October 26, 2026 to Commissioner Jensen, copied to the other two commissioners and the county clerk, asking for answers by the end of that day. No reply had arrived by then. DIG will add any answer it receives.
6. Daniel Campbell: what he said, and what the record shows
Daniel Campbell, who beat Jensen in the June 23, 2026 Republican primary by ETV’s election-night count, held no elected county office when any of these decisions were made [25, 66]. The county bought water from his parents in 2023 and, in 2024, land held in his parents’ family trust [45, 46, 59]. On May 16, 2026, during his primary campaign, he answered, on Facebook, claims that he had profited from it [67]. DIG checked his statement against the public record.
“I did not receive any money from Carbon County.” [67] Nothing in the land records contradicts him. The county’s spending records list the $1.4 million it paid in September 2023 to his parents by name [46]. The deed for the land, recorded November 20, 2024, was signed by his mother as the trustee of the family trust [59]. Daniel Campbell’s name does not appear in it.
The sale was decided “between my mother, father, and Carbon County before my father passed away in February 2025.” [67] The record supports him. The board heard the family had accepted the county’s offer in July 2023, the commission approved the water agreement in September 2023 and the land sale in September 2024, and the deed was signed on November 18, 2024 [17, 45, 63, 59].
“The value of that deal was largely tied to the amount of water rights involved.” [67] The record supports him. The county’s first payment, $1.4 million, was made the day after the commission approved a “water purchase agreement” with his parents [45, 46].
The data center site being discussed “is east of Wellington” and “nowhere near the Campbell property.” [67] The record supports him. Altigen’s proposed gas power plant and data center site is about five to seven miles east of the county’s Ridge Road land, which includes what it bought from his family, with the town of Wellington in between (measured on county and state parcel maps) [68, 69].
“The county has a signed NDA and will not disclose what company they are bringing in.” [67] The record supports him. Three days after his statement, the minutes of Jensen’s update to the economic development board say “The NDA wants” two of the parcels, without naming the company [7].
Some of his statements can’t be checked against public records, and DIG asked Commissioner Jensen and the county about them on October 26, 2026. He wrote that “after attorneys became involved, we were directly told that if we did not comply, the county would take the property through eminent domain,” that the family was told otherwise “they would block our access to the remaining 80 acres,” and that the county “continued pushing for us to sell our remaining water shares.” [67] Eminent domain is the government’s power to take private land for public use, with payment. No commission agenda or minutes DIG reviewed from 2023 through October 7, 2026 mention using it on this land. No reply had arrived by the deadline.
On every point about the land sale that the public record can test, nothing DIG found contradicts Campbell’s account. Questions about how these deals were handled are questions for the commission, not for the families who sold the land.
Sources
Carbon County Commission
- Carbon County Commission, minutes, August 19, 2026. PDF. ↩ a b c d e f g
- Carbon County Commission, minutes, May 6, 2026. PDF. ↩ a b c d e
- Carbon County Commission, minutes, February 4, 2026. PDF. ↩ a b c
- Carbon County Commission, agenda, October 5, 2022. PDF. ↩
- Carbon County Commission, minutes, October 5, 2022. PDF. ↩
- Carbon County Commission, minutes, January 21, 2026. PDF. ↩ a b c
- Carbon County Commission, minutes, October 7, 2026. PDF. ↩ a b
- Carbon County Commission, minutes, July 2, 2025. PDF. ↩
- Carbon County Commission, minutes, September 6, 2023. PDF. ↩ a b c d e
- Carbon County Commission, minutes, August 21, 2024. PDF. ↩ a b
- Carbon County Commission, minutes, February 5, 2025. PDF. ↩
- Carbon County Commission, minutes, September 4, 2024. PDF. ↩ a b c d
Video of public meetings
- Carbon County Commission, meeting video, May 6, 2026, at 0:49:39 (the county’s video channel). video. ↩ a b
- Carbon County Commission, meeting video, February 4, 2026, at 0:19:03 (the county’s video channel). video. ↩ a b
- Carbon County Commission, meeting video, August 19, 2026, at 0:02:26 (the county’s video channel). video. ↩ a b
Economic development board
- Carbon County Community Economic Development Board, minutes, June 17, 2025. PDF. ↩ a b
- Carbon County Community Economic Development Board, minutes, May 19, 2026. PDF. ↩ a b c d e f g
- Carbon County Community Economic Development Board, minutes, August 19, 2025. PDF. ↩ a b
- Carbon County Community Economic Development Board, minutes, February 17, 2026. PDF. ↩ a b c d
- Carbon County Community Economic Development Board, minutes, March 18, 2025. PDF. ↩ a b
- Carbon County Community Economic Development Board, minutes, January 19, 2023. PDF. ↩
- Carbon County Community Economic Development Board, minutes, July 20, 2023. PDF. ↩ a b c d e
- Carbon County Community Economic Development Board, minutes, July 15, 2025. PDF. ↩ a b
- Carbon County Community Economic Development Board, minutes, December 16, 2025. PDF. ↩ a b
- Carbon County Community Economic Development Board, minutes, April 15, 2025. PDF. ↩
- Carbon County Community Economic Development Board, minutes, April 21, 2026. PDF. ↩ a b c
- Carbon County Community Economic Development Board, minutes, June 16, 2026. PDF. ↩ a b c
- Carbon County Community Economic Development Board, minutes, August 18, 2026. PDF. ↩ a b c
- Carbon County Community Economic Development Board, minutes, March 3, 2026. PDF. ↩
Other public bodies
Utah Public Notice Website
- Utah Public Notice Website, notice 1081589 and its posting record, read October 25, 2026. utah.gov. ↩ a b c d
- Utah Public Notice Website, notice 1081593 and its posting record, read October 25, 2026. utah.gov. ↩ a b c
- Utah Public Notice Website, notice 1091907 and its posting record, read October 25, 2026. utah.gov. ↩ a b c
- Utah Public Notice Website, notice 1088467 and its posting record, read October 25, 2026. utah.gov. ↩ a b
- Utah Public Notice Website, notice 1108523 and its posting record, read October 25, 2026. utah.gov. ↩ a b c d
- Utah Public Notice Website, notice 980926 and its posting record, read October 25, 2026. utah.gov. ↩ a b
- Utah Public Notice Website, notice 1002727 and its posting record, read October 25, 2026. utah.gov. ↩
- Utah Public Notice Website, notice 1009569 and its posting record, read October 25, 2026. utah.gov. ↩
- Utah Public Notice Website, notice 1045747 and its posting record, read October 25, 2026. utah.gov. ↩
- Utah Public Notice Website, the Carbon Community Economic Development Board’s notice list, read October 24, 2026. utah.gov. ↩
- Utah Public Notice Website, Carbon Community Economic Development Board notice for the October 20, 2026 meeting. utah.gov. ↩
County land records
- Carbon County Assessor, tax information service: owner, acreage and deed entry for the six park parcels, read October 24, 2026 (query on file with DIG). ↩ a b
- Carbon County Recorder, warranty deed, entry 878829 (parcels 02-1812 and 02-1798), recorded August 13, 2026. ↩ a b c
- Carbon County Recorder, special warranty deed, entry 871278, recorded November 20, 2024. ↩ a b c d
- Carbon County Recorder, deed of personal representative, entry 872084 (the half-acre road parcel), recorded January 30, 2025. ↩
- Carbon County Recorder, warranty deed, entry 878487 (parcel 02-1806), recorded July 21, 2026. ↩
- Carbon County Assessor, map service: boundaries of the six park parcels, read October 26, 2026 (query on file with DIG). ↩
County website
- Carbon County website, County Commission page, read October 24, 2026. carbon.utah.gov. ↩ a b c
- Carbon County website, meetings page, read October 25, 2026. carbon.utah.gov. ↩
- Carbon County website and its meeting database, read October 25, 2026. carbon.utah.gov meeting database. ↩
- Carbon County website, Community Economic Development Board page, read October 25, 2026. carbon.utah.gov. ↩
Budgets and spending
- Transparent Utah (Office of the State Auditor), Carbon County payments, read October 24, 2026. transparent.utah.gov. ↩ a b c d e f g h i j k
- Transparent Utah, Carbon County’s ARPA-line entries, read October 26, 2026. transparent.utah.gov. ↩ a b c
- Carbon County, 2024 amended budget (December 4, 2024). PDF. ↩
Federal funds and audits
- U.S. Treasury, State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds project and expenditure data through March 2026. home.treasury.gov. ↩ a b
- U.S. Treasury, Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund public data release for 2024 (November 4, 2025). home.treasury.gov. ↩ a b c
- U.S. Treasury, Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund guidance (September 2023). PDF. ↩ a b
- American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, Pub. L. 117-2, sections 603 and 605. govinfo.gov. ↩
- Federal Audit Clearinghouse, Carbon County, Utah, single audits 2019-2026, searched October 26, 2026. app.fac.gov. ↩ a b c
- 2 CFR 200.501 (2024 edition), audit requirements. govinfo.gov. ↩
- 2 CFR 200.512 (2024 edition), report submission. govinfo.gov. ↩
- Federal Audit Clearinghouse, search for Carbon County’s 2024 single audit, October 26, 2026. app.fac.gov. ↩
- Carbon County, single audit for fiscal year 2025 (Larson & Company, July 21, 2026), Federal Audit Clearinghouse. app.fac.gov. ↩
Utah law
- Utah Code 52-4-203. le.utah.gov. ↩ a b
- Utah Code 52-4-202. le.utah.gov. ↩
News reports and data
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service, Land Values 2024 Summary (August 2024). PDF. ↩ a b
- ETV News, “Republican primary results released in Emery, Carbon Counties,” June 23, 2026. etvnews.com. ↩