Bureau Of Land Management Gives Us A Lump Of Coal, But Just Temporarily.

The federal Bureau of Land Management's web site had
this photo of a giant coal seam on its home page Thursday,
prompting outrcry and suspicions that the federal government
is all about coal, coal, coal

The United States Bureau of Land Management, as the name implies, manages public lands across the nation.

Most of the land they manage is in the western half of the United States, but it does make up about one eighth of the land mass in for the country.

Most of that land is wilderness and conservation areas, national monuments, and trails and rivers. A little bit of this land is also used for oil and gas drilling and coal mining.

Of course, all you hear from the Trump administration is coal, coal, coal!  Contrary to what he says, coal is not going to make a comeback it's not going to make America great again, and all those coal miners relying on Trump's promise that they'll work in the mines again an make good money are in for a disappointment.

But the Trump administration perseveres any chance it gets. That even affected the web site of the Bureau of Land Management.

Until Wednesday, the BLM's home page had a nice picture of two boys with backpacks gazing out at scenic, hilly terrain.

The BLM home page Thursday had an image of..... a coal seam.

Yep, just a dark, unphotogenic expanse of dark gray coal. A coal seam, by the way, is a nice big mass of coal that's accessible for mining.

I guess this illustrates perfectly the Trump administration philosophy on public lands. If it's pretty, but worth money, make it ugly and take the money.

The  Bureau of Land Management said the coal photo was
just going to be part of a rotating series of photos on its home
page, depicting various aspects of federal lands By Friday,
the coal has been replaced by this image of a fly fisherman.

However, the BLM says the coal picture was not a literally dark vision of how the U.S. government would look at federal lands going forward.

The BLM said they would rotate photos on their home page to reflect different aspects of the agency and the lands they own. Or, more accurately, we own.

They said that by Friday, the picture will have changed again, and that many of the photos would reflect the natural beauty of federal lands.

True to their word, the BLM website's home page late Friday had a nice photo of a young man fly fishing in a fresh, clean looking river.

Phew!