Munger, Willard

When Willard Munger died on July 11, 1999, he was in his 43rd year, and in the middle of his 22nd term, as a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. Only three men served longer in the Minnesota legislature (House and Senate terms combined), and they all beat Munger by only one year. Representing District 7A, which included West Duluth and portions of St. Louis County, Munger championed environmental causes to such a degree that he became known as "Mr. Environment" in Minnesota.

The first bill he introduced as a freshman legislator in 1955 would have appropriated $25,000 to study water pollution. It failed to pass, but Munger reintroduced the bill during the next term and it looked certain for defeat again when news of an oil spill, which killed some ducks, changed some votes and the legislation passed. Munger became chairman of the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee in 1973, and remained so except for a short span in the mid-1980s when the chair passed to a Republican. The flood of environmental legislation passed by the Minnesota legislature in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s can largely be traced to the leadership and perseverance of Willard Munger.

Munger can be credited with the passage of several important environmental bills. These include legislation creating sewer sanitation districts, the banning of DDT (Minnesota was the first state to do so), the Solid Waste and Recycling Act of 1989, dedication of a portion of lottery profits to the Environmental and Natural Resources Trust Fund, and the Wetlands Preservation Act of 1991. He took determined stands for increased protection of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and against Reserve Mining Company's continued dumping of taconite tailings into Lake Superior. While some of his packaging and recycling legislation passed, his many-year fight for mandatory deposits on non-returnable beer and pop cans and for the banning of plastic milk bottles never did pass the Minnesota legislature.

Munger was born on January 20, 1911, on a farm in Otter Tail County. He often accompanied his father on organizing trips for the Nonpartisan League, the populist agrarian movement, and got to know its leader, A.C. Townley, very well. His first attempt at political office, as a farmer-labor candidate for the Minnesota legislature from Otter Tail County, was unsuccessful in 1934. He then became a state grain, fruit, and vegetable inspector which required him to move to Duluth, a port for ships carrying those commodities. During World War II Munger worked in the Duluth-Superior shipyards and owned and operated a grocery store and gas station. Later he owned a 22 unit hotel (The Willard Hotel) and coffee shop in the western Duluth neighborhood that became part of his legislative district. At the urging of his first wife, Martha, he ran again for a seat in the Minnesota legislature in 1952, but lost. He ran again successfully in 1954 and 43 of the next 45 years were spent as a DFL legislator. He only missed serving in the 1965-1966 legislature, when his bid for a state senate seat backfired in a November 1964 election loss.

Munger lost his first wife to cancer in 1960 and his second wife, Frances, to a stroke in 1997. He was survived by a brother, Harry Munger of Duluth; a son, Willard Jr. of Duluth; and a daughter, Patricia Munger Lehr of Minnetonka. The Willard Munger bicycle trail between Hinckley and Duluth is named in his honor, and he hung a sign in his office which said, "The Munger Trail Starts Here."