Verna Mize was once dubbed the First Lady of Lake Superior. Governor William Milliken of Michigan was the first to honor Mize with the title First Lady of Lake Superior in 1975. But the title obscured the collective effort behind the victory for the environment and the Lake Superior basin.
In 1967, Mize discovered that Reserve Mining Company’s site in Silver Bay, Minnesota had been dumping 67,000 tons of taconite mine waste into Lake Superior every day since 1955. The contamination had reached Houghton by that summer. While Mize became the public face of the fight, the victory required a broad coalition of supporters whose contributions have largely faded from memory.
Lindsay Hiltunen, a university archivist at MTU Archives, explained the broader implications of Mize’s discovery and the movement it sparked. “Communities across Lake Superior, including in Northern Wisconsin, Michigan and Canada, were at risk,” Hiltunen said. “The actions of Reserve Mining Company put the entire Lake Superior watershed at risk.”
What made the campaign successful was not Mize’s efforts alone, but the grassroots movement that formed around her work. The movement benefited from citizen groups and local chapters in the region that held protests, reached out to supporters, and educated the public about the environmental impact. The effort relied heavily on petitions to legislators and letter-writing campaigns.
“In Verna’s correspondence files with friends and community members back in Michigan, she often thanked them for letter-writing support and signed off on many of her individual letters by urging folks to write to their legislators, write to the EPA, write and phone their governor,” Hiltunen said. “She was frequently trying to charge people into action. There was a sense that supporters were encouraged to speak the cause out loud to anyone who will listen.”
A block of six legislators wrote a letter urging the EPA to take legal action against Reserve Mining Company, demonstrating the political momentum the grassroots campaign had generated. U.S. Senators Robert Griffin and Phillip A. Hart of Michigan and Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota became key allies. Hart invited Mize to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on the Environment.
Family members also played crucial roles. Mize’s second cousin Mary worked on the campaign in the Copper Country, sacrificing time and energy alongside countless others. The letter writers, the petition organizers, the protest attendees were essential to the movement’s success.
The political landscape was not uniformly supportive. Representative Phillip Ruppe, mentioned numerous times in the Mize Letters at the MTU Archives, exemplified the political obstacles. While he spoke out against Reserve Mining Company’s dumping, he simultaneously used the mining company’s own rhetoric about the lack of alternatives, undermining the movement’s message.
In 1972, the EPA issued a notice to the company to end its dumping process. Though the company refused, the EPA v. Reserve Mining Company trial began in 1973. Litigation continued throughout the decade with appeals and reversals. In 1980, Reserve Mining Company was finally required to remove the taconite tailings from Lake Superior to an on-land tailings basin three miles inland and 600 feet above the lake. The project took over a decade to complete.
The victory belonged to a movement, not a single person. Hiltunen’s research reveals the humanity in those letters, “It’s really interesting to me that she was opening letters thanking dear friends for the homemade jam they sent her, then quickly shifting gears to speak about her environmental views and deep political strategy.”
Verna Mize’s legacy in the Copper Country today is highlighted by a triathlon in her honor and a waterfront park in Houghton.
The Verna Mize Triathlon starts tomorrow. The Houghton County Sheriff’s Office will provide security during the event. Please watch for runners, bikers, and swimmers if out in the community.
Learn more about the Verna Mize Triathlon online.
