Court documents later said Army records showed that the father called Dugway several times to ask for cleanup of unexploded ordnance and weapon fragments he found. Louise says, "He was told they were strays from testing on the base."

Secrets begin to leak

In 1988, the Deseret News obtained and reported on Army documents that suspected public U.S. Bureau of Land Management areas in the "Southern Triangle" near the Cannons' land were likely heavily contaminated by weapons testing. Also subjected to the tests, according to the report, was the so-called "Yellow Jacket" area (the name of one of the Cannons' 86.5 patented mining claims in the region).

The Deseret News also wrote stories about how the Army then wanted to expand its boundaries to absorb such dangerous BLM areas, which the BLM opposed, preferring that the Army clean up the land instead.

The expansion never occurred. But Army officials said last month in response to Deseret Morning News inquiries that expansion has again been proposed internally. Officials have offered no further details, nor specifics on what boundaries are sought.

Despite early Deseret News stories, the Cannons said they did not truly suspect heavy contamination of their lands until the Army Corps of Engineers requested official permission in 1994 to enter their property "to determine whether . . . these lands have been impacted by unexploded ordnance."

Louise said she later happened to be at the Tooele County Courthouse on Aug. 30, 1994, filing paperwork on a mining claim when a worker told her the Army was holding an information session downstairs about possible contamination on desert lands.

"I signed in, picked up the fact sheets and left," she says. "The fact sheets said they were checking for contamination in the Southern Triangle and on private property, but did not name the Cannon property."

However, by signing in there, courts would later rule that Louise had enough knowledge about potential contamination on the Cannon lands that she unwittingly started a clock ticking toward a two-year deadline to file any lawsuits against the government. She would not learn about that deadline until it was too late.

Contamination aplenty

In 1996, a government contractor finished a draft study that said the Cannon property was heavily contaminated. Visits by the contractor had found intact, high-explosive mortar shells and burster tubes from chemical-filled rockets and bombs.

According to court documents, the study said a full-scale removal of munitions and debris in the Yellow Jacket claim area alone — only a small part of the Cannons' property — would cost $12.3 million.