They started arriving in the late 1970s. And kept coming for the first few years of the '80s. Drawn by the allure of high wages mining uranium.

Yellow cake was selling for more than $30 a pound, so the ore was there. And well worth the excavation of hundreds of feet of overburden. Despite the assertions of the company that most employees would live in the existing communities, many of the new workers established residence in the desert.

Some by simply squatting on whatever land looked suitable and was close to the paved access road to the mine. Which led to repeated forceful evictions.

Many by renting space on undeveloped private inholdings. In large, concentrated trailer courts in the middle of nowhere. The infamous Dykersville.

And a few by buying small pieces of those private lands. And attempting to turn these desert ranchettes into homes.

Many of these folks tried to "live off the land," i.e. steal the public's wildlife in order to save on grocery bills and trips into town. Lots of poaching activity, and a lot of other illegal activity as well. And repeated domestic dispute calls.

Most of them got their water from two sources in the desert. Making regular, daily trips to the large, flowing artesian. Excellent, cold water. And a few, like me, used the pump well about a mile away.

A wonderful little surprise out in the middle of the desert... a red hand pump. Nothing else artificial around for miles. No trough, just the pump sitting on the pipe into the ground. Took at least 18-20 pumps to get the water to the surface, but when you did, it was well worth the effort. Bitter cold, clear, sweet water.

When passing by, I would empty my containers of town water and refill from this desert cooler.

The boom lasted until 1983 or 1984. The market fell out of yellow cake, and the mine closed. Without jobs, most squatters left. Often leaving their "homes" behind. The horrible winter of 1983-84 finished off most the rest.

The detritus of their failed attempts at settling the desert is still there, scavenged by others, and by time.

I knew the folks who owned this place. Cannot remember their name, nor how many were in the family, but I was invited in for coffee at least once. They had such intentions of settling on this ground, so many plans.

The prairie dogs own it now.

For the coup de grace, the feds finally got around to testing the water from the artesian, and the red hand pump. And promptly removed the pump and the pipe for the artesian.

Their waters exceeded federal safety standards for beta emissions.

In other words, our delicious, cold, desert water was hot. Radioactively hot.

That just about did it for the rest of the squatters. The remote distance from town, once a benefit when working at the mine, now was a hindrance for any other employment. And few could afford to drill a well for their own water, and it would almost certainly come from the same radioactive aquifer as the artesian.

One family stuck it out, and is still there. A few others have come and gone over the past 18 years, most leaving their own stain of desert waste. You can still buy this land on eBay. Saw some on that auction site yesterday.

It was bitter cold as the heeler sisters and I traveled through that country this morning. Too nippy for a swig of ice-cold radioactive well water. But I thought of that water as we rolled past the artesian and the old pump head.

Sweetest water I've ever tasted.