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Blue Whale Blubber to Become Black Gold

While the skeleton will be saved, the rest of the whale will end up as compost

By JACKSON WEST
Updated 1:56 PM PST, Fri, Oct 30, 2009

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Larry Wagner/AP

Where others might see a multi-ton smelly mess, a Mendocino man sees black gold.

Martin Mileck of Cold Creek Compost has volunteered to take all the blubber folks can carry from the dead blue whale that washed up near Fort Bragg.

Once turned into rich humus, he'll donate an equivalent amount of compost to gardening programs for the children and elderly, neatly skirting the prohibition on profiting from trade in marine mammals.

So folks are madly butchering the beast until it is cut into small enough pieces to be lifted up the cliff from the edge of the sea.

The whale's 70-foot skeleton will still be buried, but only long enough for microorganisms to polish it to a high shine, and then will be put on display in Fort Bragg.

Jackson West figures that's going to be one hell of a lot of compost.

Copyright NBC Local Media
First Published: Oct 30, 2009 12:31 PM PST

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