Buying Land in Jefferson County, Nebraska

Steele City: a Real, Operating Pipeline Hub -- Not the Cancelled Keystone XL

Could not confirm

This is worth stating precisely, because it's easy to conflate two different projects. Steele City, in Jefferson County, is the actual junction of the original Keystone Pipeline (Phase I, completed 2010, running from Hardisty, Alberta to Steele City and on to Illinois refineries) and the Keystone-Cushing extension (Phase II, completed 2011, running from Steele City to Cushing, Oklahoma) -- an operating pump-station hub, not a proposed one. The separate, larger Keystone XL project also had an approved Nebraska route running through Jefferson County to the same Steele City junction, but Keystone XL was cancelled by its developer in 2021 and was never built. If a listing or seller references 'the pipeline' near a Jefferson County parcel, confirm which one, and whether it refers to an existing operating easement (the original Keystone system) versus a route that was approved but never constructed (Keystone XL) -- these carry very different practical implications for a specific parcel.

Zoning Just Substantially Rewritten (April 2026)

Generally favorable

Jefferson County has had adopted zoning for some time, administered by a Planning Commission (established under Neb. Rev. Stat. 23-114.01 et seq.) and a Zoning Administrator based in Fairbury -- but the rules themselves changed significantly and recently. After roughly two years of review, the County Board approved a substantially rewritten Zoning Regulation (Resolution No. 2026-02) in April 2026, expanding the regulation from 68 pages to 215 pages. Because this is such a recent, major rewrite, do not rely on any pre-2026 summary of Jefferson County zoning categories, setbacks, or conditional-use rules -- confirm the current, 2026 regulation's terms directly with the county for any specific parcel.

Split Between Two NRDs, One Now Under Mandatory Allocation

Case-by-case / verify locally

Jefferson County is covered by two Natural Resources Districts, not one: the Little Blue NRD (headquartered in Davenport, covering only a portion of Jefferson County alongside all of Thayer County, most of Adams County, and portions of Webster, Clay, Nuckolls, and Fillmore Counties) and the Lower Big Blue NRD (headquartered in Beatrice), which covers the remainder. This matters concretely right now: the Little Blue NRD entered mandatory groundwater allocations in 2025 -- an initial five-year allocation period granting each certified irrigated acre 65 acre-inches of groundwater, with agricultural allocations effective immediately and municipal allocations beginning after January 1, 2026 -- triggered by low aquifer levels. If a parcel's irrigation value matters to your purchase, confirming which NRD actually covers it, and whether it falls under Little Blue's new mandatory allocation, is essential rather than optional.