Days after the completion of a $14.2 million renovation ordered by President Donald Trump, the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool in Washington has turned green again as algae proliferated in warm weather, frustrating the administration’s effort to achieve what Trump called “American flag blue” in time for the nation’s 250th birthday.
National Park Service employees were seen using skimmers on Monday in a bid to clean the algae from the pool and restore its intended hue.
The algae’s return marks the latest setback in Trump’s broader campaign to recondition the National Mall and other Washington landmarks, a series of projects that have drawn scrutiny over no-bid contracts, rising costs, and questions about presidential authority over federally protected public spaces.
The reflecting pool — one of Washington’s most historically symbolic attractions, and the site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech — has been a focus of Trump’s efforts to recondition the capital during his second presidency.
A no-bid contract to waterproof and repaint the pool, which dates back more than a century, was awarded to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, a Virginia-based company that previously carried out work on a swimming pool at one of Trump’s golf clubs, according to the Guardian.
The administration had claimed that “residual” algae would be cleared in the immediate aftermath of the renovation, but it proliferated amid warm weather.
In recent days, the U.S. Department of the Interior said the installation of a water treatment system using what a spokesperson described as “nanobubbler technology” would help address the algae issue.
“The nanobubbler technology has successfully destroyed the algae bloom that has plagued every pool reopening since 1922,” a spokesperson told the Guardian on Tuesday. The spokesperson said the pool had been “broken and disgusting” days after a renovation that took place while Barack Obama was president.
“Now, due to deploying the advanced nanobubbler technology, the algae is dead and being vacuumed up as we speak,” the spokesperson added. “We thank President Trump for fixing the reflecting pool for good.”
In a June 5 post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the renovation he ordered would stand the test of time. “This was not a paint job,” he wrote. “This was highly sophisticated material, industrial strength, that could last for 100 years, applied by very talented people.”
Administration officials have repeatedly said that other presidents tried and failed in years past to beautify the pool with “extremely costly” projects.
While Trump initially put the cost of this latest effort at about $1.8 million, it quickly rose beyond $14 million, according to the Guardian.