Interview and story by Danette Knickmeier, photo credit Jerry Mathiason
Chuck Dayton has been defending Minnesota’s environment longer than many of us have been alive. This is his story.
Soon after graduating from Michigan law school in 1964, Chuck went on a Sierra Club outing in Colorado. He then joined his local chapter, and quickly became a board member. To Chuck, it was a no-brainer. He thought “I was a lawyer and lawyers are always helpful.”
His first venture into the legislative area was the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act, passed in 1971, which gives citizens the right to sue on behalf of the environment. This is still a major environmental statute in Minnesota.
In 1971, Chuck left his partnership in a large Minneapolis law firm to join the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group as the first lawyer for this student-funded group. At MPIRG, he brought the lawsuit challenging logging in the Boundary Waters Canoe area, which sparked the controversies in the 1970’s culminating in the 1978 amendments banning logging, mining and most motorized travel in the BWCAW.
In the early 70s, the Minnesota chapter of the Sierra Club decided to hire a legislative lobbyist for their Project Environment effort. So Chuck and an MPIRG colleague, John Herman started a law firm and became the first paid environmental lobbyists in the state of Minnesota.
In the mid-70s, they took advantage of a time when environmentalism was extremely popular—even with the Republicans. His firm helped pass a flood of environmental state legislation, like the Minnesota Environmental Policy Act (which requires Environmental Impact Statements), the Minnesota Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and the Minnesota Rivers Critical Areas Act, just to name a few. He likes to say “We hit a lot of homeruns, but we had the wind blowing 50 miles an hour from behind home plate.” For their work in the 1970’s, Chuck and John Herman were named the “Environmentalists of the Decade” by the North Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.
Throughout the 70s, Chuck was heavily involved in protecting the Boundary Waters, Canoe Area, which, at the time, was being threatened by logging, mining, snowmobiling and motorboat use. His work coupled with that of a lot of volunteers, notably Bud Heinselman, a retired forester, resulted in the passage of the 1978 amendments to the Wilderness Act, which banned logging, mining, and snowmobiles, and heavily limited the use of motorboats in this treasured area we all know and love.
During this time, he had what he calls “The third best idea I’ve ever had after the two women I’ve been married to.” The idea was simple: He served a Freedom of Information act request on the forest service to get a list of names of every person who had ever led a paddle-only trip into the Boundary Waters. That list of 30,000 names became an instant national advocacy group know as The Friends of the Boundary Waters.
In the 80s and beyond, Chuck continued representing the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations in the courts.
Now retired, Chuck is still a Sierra Club member and donor, and with his wife, splits his time between Minnesota and North Carolina.
Words of wisdom about the future of our environment from Chuck are simple: “If you’re depressed about climate change, you need to do 3 things: Talk about it, do something about it, and spend time in beautiful places. With the Sierra Club, you can do all of these things.”