Buying Land in Morton County, North Dakota

The Dakota Access Pipeline Fight Was Centered Here -- And Its Aftermath Is Still Unresolved

Could not confirm

Morton County, particularly the area around Cannon Ball and Highway 1806 near the Missouri River/Lake Oahe crossing, was the epicenter of the 2016-2017 protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which drew national and international attention, hundreds of arrests, and a Highway 1806 closure that reportedly lasted roughly five months. Nearly a decade later, this is not simply historical: a Morton County jury delivered a verdict against Greenpeace in March 2025 (later reduced to a $345 million judgment finalized by the court in February 2026, which Greenpeace has said it will appeal), and the US Army Corps of Engineers only finalized the pipeline's Lake Oahe easement -- following a six-year environmental review -- in May 2026, with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe stating it would continue legal opposition. None of this should be read as implying any specific Morton County parcel is affected by pipeline right-of-way or protest-related land issues, but the underlying land-use and legal dispute genuinely was not settled as recently as this page's writing, and a buyer researching land anywhere near the pipeline corridor or the former protest-camp areas should understand this is very recent, not distant, history.

A Live, Pending Data Center Zoning Fight, With a Real County/City Jurisdiction Gap

Case-by-case / verify locally

Morton County adopted a moratorium on data centers and cryptocurrency mining facilities in September 2024, blocking new such facilities until the county adopted formal siting standards. As of August 2026, the county's Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously recommended approval of a new data center ordinance (covering noise, setbacks, water and power use, roads, and emergency planning) for a county commission vote -- meaning as of this writing (September 2026) the ordinance's final adoption and exact terms are still pending, not settled. Separately and importantly: a data center developer has already signed land-purchase option agreements with three Morton County landowners for property that sits within the City of Mandan's extraterritorial zoning jurisdiction -- meaning Mandan's zoning, not the county's, governs that land regardless of what the county ordinance eventually says. If a parcel of interest could plausibly attract large-scale industrial or data-center development (or if a buyer wants to avoid neighboring such development), confirm both current jurisdiction (county vs. a city's extraterritorial zone) and the pending ordinance's final status directly with the relevant office rather than assuming either applies.

Countywide Zoning Through a Land Use Code, With a Distinct Missouri River Overlay District

Generally favorable

Morton County's Department of Planning and Zoning directly administers zoning and subdivision regulations for unincorporated areas of the county through its Land Use Code, along with floodplain administration outside incorporated cities and townships. The code includes both a Floodplain Overlay District and a specific Missouri River Overlay District -- a notable, river-specific regulatory layer given the county's long Missouri River frontage (the Heart River also joins the Missouri at Mandan). This gives a buyer a single county ordinance and office to check for unincorporated land, though incorporated cities like Mandan run their own separate zoning and may hold extraterritorial authority just beyond their limits, as the data center land-option situation illustrates directly.