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The reflecting pool at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., is one of the most iconic sights in the U.S. capital.
In ideal conditions, its 600-metre-long surface provides shimmering images of the white columns of the memorial or the dramatic obelisk of the nearby Washington Monument.
But when it gets hot in the city, algae blooms often take over the century-old pool, turning it a murky green.
U.S. President Donald Trump believed he had a solution to the reflecting pool’s problems: painting its bottom a particular shade of blue, which he dubbed “American flag blue.”
The repairs involved painting a surface area larger than six soccer fields and installing technology that adds oxygen bubbles to the shallow water. The cost to taxpayers surpassed $14 million US.
Trump declared work on the pool complete in a Truth Social post on June 3. He wrote: “This will be the first time since the day it was built, 1922, that it has worked, and worked wonderfully, indeed!”
Less than two weeks later, the system appears not to be working quite so wonderfully.
The water was a vivid green on Monday morning, following several days of a heat wave in Washington.
Workers were seen using skimmers to remove the algae and adding buckets of hydrogen peroxide to the pool in an attempt to kill it.
The National Park Service, which manages the site, insists the pool’s appearance is a sign that the new water-purification technology — an ozone nanobubbler filtration system — is getting rid of accumulated algae.
“Due to deploying the advanced nanobubbler technology, the algae is dead and being vacuumed up as we speak,” a spokesperson told the New York Times. “We thank President Trump for fixing the Reflecting Pool for good.”
WATCH | The scramble to clean up algae in Washington’s newly repaired reflecting pool:
Crews work to remove algae from the refurbished reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., including adding hydrogen peroxide in an effort to combat the bloom that has turned the pool green.
It’s not clear the changes will end the pool’s problems with algae blooms, says Brooks Barrett, who studies marine plant life at the Smithsonian Institution.
“The reflecting pool is perfect for algae,” Barrett told Politico on Tuesday. “If you were trying to biofarm algae, this would be the way to go. It’s warm, it’s stagnant, it’s perfect.”
The renovation to the reflecting pool is part of Trump’s push to beautify the capital during this year’s celebration of 250 years since the U.S. declared independence.
Millions of federal dollars have been spent fixing fountains, sprucing up parks and repairing monuments that fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. government rather than the District of Columbia.
Trump originally said the reflecting pool repairs would cost $1.5 million US.
The project triggered controversy when the New York Times revealed that the contract was awarded without a competitive bidding process to a company that had previously worked on a swimming pool at one of Trump’s golf clubs.
The Obama administration spent more than $34 million US on a larger, two-year project to rebuild the pool, including fixing leaks and shoring up its concrete bottom which had begun to sink, according to the Associated Press.
