Virgil J. Muench | Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame

1904 – 1971
Inducted 1990

“The right to earn more also imposes upon the student the duty not to befoul the air and water, not to destroy the soils and environment, not to unbalance the ecological pattern of nature.” – Virgil J. Muench

“If we have the honesty and courage to examine all the basic causes for environmental deterioration and the pollution problems as they already exist, we must conclude that we must change our cause or be engulfed by the waves of our own environmental irresponsibility.” – Virgil J. Muench

Virgil Muench was an activist. He was also a lawyer, who used his persuasive speaking skills and uncompromising environmental ethic to fight pollution and defend rivers and water rights.

Muench helped established the concept of public domain in the state’s waters. He fought a proposed hydroelectric dam on one of the nation’s last wild rivers, the Namekagon in northern Wisconsin. The public’s right to preserve the state’s rivers and streams, he argued with the aid of Attorney A.D. Sutherland (WCHF Inductee), was more important than a power company’s right to dam a river. The Wisconsin Supreme Court eventually heard Muench vs. Public Service Commission and agreed.

Muench also led successful efforts to block a dam on the Wolf River and to end an irrigation drawdown of the Wolf and Oconto rivers that was endangering fish and other life.

Born in Algoma, Wis., Muench learned the conservation ethic at an early age from his father, a commercial fisherman. “Permits were available to take lake trout during spawning, but father said this was wrong – like cutting down the tree to get the apples,” he said. Muench received a law degree from Marquette University Law School in 1927. He practiced in Manitowoc, then in Green Gay, where he became involved in pollution problems threatening the Fox River.

His was an early voice in limiting development and unchecked growth, calling pollution abatement a “civic and moral responsibility.” The cost of environmental protection and remediation was far lower than the ensuing price of natural resources destruction, he maintained. He pointed out the environmental implications of a proposed “minimum standards allowable” classification that threatened the Fox, Oconto and Peshtigo rivers. Such standards would continue to condone untreated septic tank wastes in these rivers, he argued at a hearing in 1967.

A long time member of the Izaak Walton League, Muench served as acting president of the Wisconsin chapter. In 1953, he was appointed a national director.

For more than 30 years, Muench eloquently and emphatically fought pollution and instilled ecological responsibility. He remained optimistic about the ability of people and industry to make sound choices. Polluted waterways were not the result of public indifference, but ignorance, he believed.