A Whale of a Problem
In November, 1970, the Oregon State Highway Division had a whale of a problem. What to do with a 45 foot, 8 ton sperm whale, whose rotting carcass had washed up on a beach near the small coastal town of Florence, in Lane County, Oregon? One option was to let nature take its course, and allow the whale’s carcass to decompose. However, decomposition would take years, and the good people of nearby Florence did not want to endure the stench of a rotting whale for that long. Nor were they eager to swim or wade in waters that reeked of rotten whale runoff.
It had been so long since a dead whale had washed up in the region, that nobody could remember how to get rid of one. Then somebody came up with what turned out to be a misguided brainstorm: blow up the dead sea giant. Without a frame of reference, Oregon’s Highway Division concluded that to drag the behemoth off and bury it was not a good idea, because decomposition gasses would destabilize the grave and uncover it. The risk would be reduced if the dead whale was cut up first, before burial. However, nobody was eager to volunteer to chop up the rotten carcass.
