Sometimes it’s embarrassing when a project that was meant to look patriotic starts falling apart in public. That’s about how things stand with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. This famous spot was supposed to shine for America’s 250th birthday, but instead it has been the site of criminal charges, algae blooms, dead ducks, and now a federal lawsuit.
In late April, President Trump announced the plan to fix up the 2,028-foot pool, calling it “terrible” and “filthy.” For less than $2 million, he said, it could be fixed and done before July 4. It’s not clear what information he used, but the final price was $14.7 million, which is more than seven times what he thought it would cost. The work was finished in early June and included painting the bottom of the pool “American flag blue” and making it waterproof.
Within days, clumps of algae started to show up on the surface of the water. Then pieces of the blue liner that had just been put on started to peel off and float up. To get rid of the algae, crews from the Interior Department used hydrogen peroxide and nanobubble technology. It did not work. The Center for Biological Diversity wanted to know if the chemicals, the paint, or the algae itself were to blame for the deaths of several ducks that were found near the water.
It’s important to note that there were dead ducks, blue strips floatin’ in the water, green water, and a motorcade was said to have driven through the pool soon after the coating was put on. No matter what the reason was, the White House did not want the way things looked to happen.
The administration’s answer was to blame other people. Officials said the problems were caused by sabotage by people Trump called “crazy and deranged lunatics.” He thought a box cutter or razor blade was used to cut a 300-foot-long hole in the bottom of the pool. Experts on algae strongly disagreed with that way of putting things. Wayne Carmichael, a professor of biological sciences at Wright State University, told PBS News that an outside source could not have caused an algae bloom in just a few hours. He said the idea was silly. Some professors are being polite like that.
Rhino Linings, a company better known for truck bed coatings, lined the pool after Sika Corporation, which had worked on the pool’s renovation in 2010, turned down the job. Two Sika workers who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity said that the July 4 deadline and the need to paint the bottom blue made the job impossible. Not enough attention has been paid to that detail. A company that has worked on the same structure before looked at the terms and said no.
Up against all of this, a federal lawsuit has been going through the courts. In May, the Cultural Landscape Foundation and its founder, Charles Birnbaum, filed a lawsuit saying that the renovation did not follow the rules set by the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation Act. In a new complaint filed on July 2, the plaintiff said that each day the project went on without proper review, the public lost the oversight process that Congress had promised. The Justice Department said the lawsuit was too hasty and poorly argued, and that the project was in fact normal maintenance. A judge named Carl John Nichols by Trump has not yet made a decision. The DOJ has until July 17 to file a motion to dismiss.
As I watch this all happen, I get the feeling that the case shows more than one pool. It makes us wonder how federal contracts are given out when there is a lot of pressure, what “routine maintenance” really means for a protected historic landmark, and whether the rush to meet a symbolic deadline caused problems that will cost a lot more to fix than anyone first said. Doug Burgum, the secretary of the interior, said on CNN that the work was “fantastic” and that the same contractor would do the repairs. Take a moment to think about that sentence.
The lawsuit over Trump’s plans to fix up the Lincoln Memorial probably won’t end soon. The pool is still popular with tourists, but this time they’re not there to look at it; they’re there to take pictures of the blue bottom that is peeling off. The 250th birthday of the United States came and went. The water is still green.
