Trump's $14 Million Reflecting Pool Disaster: Peeling Paint and Algae Swamp
President Donald Trump, claiming expertise in swimming pool renovations, has overseen the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool's botched $14 million makeover, which now looks worse than before.
The pool's water is a sickly bright green, a result of one of the largest algae blooms in recent memory. The “industrial-grade swimming pool topping” he selected is already peeling off in sheets.
Visitors noticed the floating debris on Thursday, with some even taking samples as mementos of Trump's Washington. A man named Sean, who claimed to have experience with swimming pool coatings, expressed no surprise at the peeling.
“This is an epoxy,” he stated about the coating. “This is something you would do on a concrete — on a shot concrete sort of pool where you have leaking. And then you spray this out. But in a pool, you’re dealing with a whole lot less square feet. So you can do special treatments on it … so it isn’t going to come back up.”
The new “American flag blue” coating was part of a series of renovations Trump initiated in anticipation of the nation’s 250th anniversary. The project faced controversy from the outset when Trump awarded the lucrative contract to a chosen vendor, bypassing the standard bidding process to avoid favoritism.
After the coating dried and water was reintroduced, it took mere days for algae to reappear in droves. Algae has plagued the pool in previous years, but the renovation aimed to eradicate it.
Instead of a pristine oasis, Trump created a swamp. Workers have been seen dumping gallons of hydrogen peroxide into the pool and manually filtering the water.
The Trump administration blamed leftover algae in the pipes and claimed their solutions, including a nanobubbler, were effective. The Interior Department even asserted on Wednesday that the issue was resolved, posting a misleading photo of the bright blue sky reflected in the water, making it appear blue.
However, HuffPost confirmed on Thursday that the water remains green, with parts of the bottom still coated in muck.
No complaints have surfaced from local ducks, who continue their activities as usual.
