Green water!
Green water that shouldn't be there!
The contract came from the National Park Service, but here's a funny thing... nobody knows who initiated the contract.
KESQ News Channel 3June 10, 2026The Trump administration has spent days heavily promoting the finished renovations at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, crediting the president with making Washington, DC, look “better than ever.”But a day after the reservoir was filled post renovations, there was already quite a bit of algae visible from the water’s edge.CNN spotted a worker clearing the algae from the bottom of the recently filled pool while shooting a video on Wednesday. Asked for comment, an Interior Department spokesperson said the algae is “residual” and a normal part of the early process of restarting operations at the Reflecting Pool.“What you are seeing is residual algae from the supply lines, which have been sitting dormant for eight weeks while construction has been taking place. It’s part of the normal startup process. We are removing the algae, and the nanobubblers will maintain the pool and keep it algae free,” communications director Kate Martin said in a statement.
No... what you are seeing is something thought up without any research into whether it would work or what would be needed to make it work. The Reflecting Pool holds 6.5 million gallons of water, or about 10 Olympic-size swimming pools' worth of water!
Did you see all the ducks floating on the Reflecting Pool? You know, ducks do in the water what bears do in the woods. Couple that with the fact that the pool is basically very large, very shallow, exposed to full summer sun, continuously receiving natural water (from the Potomac River's Tidal Basin), frequented by birds, and designed to have relatively calm water. Those are almost textbook conditions for algae growth.
“I originally thought I’d do it for $2 or $3 million,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “Just do a base. But now we are fixing up the exterior of it so we will probably be in it for less than $20 million.”According to a contract summary under the Obama administration, the cost for renovations to the Reflecting Pool at the time was $35.3 million.
So how did we end up with this half-baked idea? Simple... Trump wanted it.
I picture some guy at a million-dollar cocktail party walking up to a politician and saying, "Hey, I've got something to fix the Reflecting Pool!"
A little campaign donation later, an idea conceived over champagne wishes and caviar dreams became a reality—or a nightmare!
Then we have Trump's other idea... let's paint it flag blue! With no thought given to how that dark color would affect the pool.
This has been a cluster f**k from the beginning.
Then there are the questionable donations, the Daily Beast reported...
The owner of one of the firms that received a no-bid contract for the work has a checkered past.Janna BrancoliniJun. 19 2026President Donald Trump’s overhaul of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool continues to make headlines for the wrong reasons, as new revelations surface about one of the contractors involved.Trump, 80, had bragged for months about repainting the massive pool on the National Mall his hand-selected shade of “American flag blue,” but less than 24 hours after the project was completed, the pool turned green with algae.Soon after, the blue finish began flaking off and floating to the surface, despite the fact that the firm overseeing the renovation had been paid about $14 million—more than seven times Trump’s original estimate of $1.8 million.Now, The New York Times has revealed that the firm tasked with installing the water-purification system to prevent algae bloom is owned by a long-time Trump supporter and two-time felon who pled guilty to bribing a congressman and violating campaign finance laws.Federal contracting records show the National Park Service bypassed the government’s usual competitive-bidding process and awarded a $1.7 million no-bid contract to the Ohio-based firm Greenwater Services, the Times reported.The company is owned by J.J. Cafaro Investment Trust led by John J. Cafaro, a Trump donor who owns a Palm Beach mansion near the president’s private Mar-a-Lago club.Trump has described Cafaro as a “fantastic man,” the Times reported, despite his multiple run-ins with the law.
And now, people are starting to ask questions!
The Hillby Mallory Wilson06/19/26President Trump’s efforts to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool have not gone smoothly, despite the president maintaining he has a lot of experience with pools.Questions have swirled about the no-bid, multimillion dollar contract given to complete the pool renovations, one of several Trump beautification projects in Washington, D.C., ahead of the U.S.’s 250th anniversary.[...]No bid contractTrump first announced his plans to renovate the Reflecting Pool in April, saying he would fix leaks and change the color of the bottom to “American flag blue.”[...]Cost for work has balloonedThe cost of the contract for work on the reflecting pool has ballooned up to $14.7 million, federal records showed this week.The contract given to Atlantic Industrial, which was tasked with resealing, waterproofing and repainting the pool, has gone up more than $1.5 million in just the past month.[...]It’s not easy being greenGreen algae was quick to make its comeback after the renovations were finished, turning the pool’s color from blue to green.[...]Peeling paintTrump specially picked the color for the bottom of the reflecting pool, but the material used appears to have survived less than two weeks at the bottom of the pool before photos showed it peeling away and floating to the top.
Ah yes, Trump has many interesting friends! What do they say about birds of a feather flock together? It looks like felons do the same.
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