Before I spoke with city of San Diego surveyor Bill Craig for my story on retiree health care, I had never thought about what happened to dead whales after they’re beached. Now, I know. They’re dumped at the landfill.
In celebration of the phrase, “the carcass of a beached whale” making it into my story, here is a video of a beached whale dumping at Miramar Landfill in 2009. City Environmental Services Department spokesman José Ysea captured it on his cell phone.
My colleague Will Carless also passed along this old gem from an Oregon television station about a dead whale that didn’t get dumped in a landfill. Instead, they disposed of it in a, uh, more explosive way. It’s worth watching for the wry humor, especially the line, “The blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds.”
Please contact Liam Dillon directly at liam.dillon@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.550.5663 and follow him on Twitter: twitter.com/dillonliam.