Army tests ravaged family's land

Jesse filed a first claim for damages, and was paid $755.48. Later, he filed another claim for damages to mine shaft timbers from the testing and was paid $2,064.

He filed a third claim five years later in 1950. He said while he accepted the earlier payment in full for all claims for damages at his Yellow Jacket mine, "I did not believe at that time that the chemical agents used by the Army would remain in the workings and make it impossible for me to ever operate the mine again without some sort of decontamination."

The claim added he found there was "still a concentration of poison gas present in the mine," and said miners who considered leasing it "shied away when they learned of the Army's use of the mine." He never collected money on that claim, and his grandchildren never learned about it from him.

Regardless, Louise says, "The Army was under contractual obligation to clean up the land, and they never have."

Court win, court loss

The younger Cannons initially won $160,937 in damages against the Army in 2002, but the Army appealed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed the decision.

Despite the reversal, the appeals court's written opinion blasted "the government's abysmal failure over the past half-century to clean up the test site."

It lamented that the law gave the Cannon siblings only two years from when they learned about the possibility of heavy contamination of their property to file suit. The Cannons had contended the clock should have started ticking when the Army's draft study of contamination was released in 1996 (which is also when they filed suit).

But the court agreed with the Army's assertion that it began when Louise attended the information meeting in 1994, and when the Army asked permission to search for unexploded ordnance. That meant the statute of limitations allowed by law had expired, and the Cannons lost.

Still, the court wrote, "The United States government has yet fully to recognize and appreciate Jesse F. Cannon's contribution to national security during World War II. The government should have lived up to its obligations long ago. . . . The Cannons' remedy at this stage is political, however, not legal."

Congress no help

Taking the judges' hint that only political and not legal help was available, the Cannons started asking Congress for compensation for their contaminated land.

"I have written to some members of the Utah congressional delegation and to 200 different members of appropriations or other committees who are over defense or public lands," Louise said. "I have not received one reply."