Despite ballooning costs, President Trump will not seek new bids to repair the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Sunday, repeating the president’s claims that vandals, not the contractor, were to blame for problems plaguing the $16 million clean-up project.
“We’ll use the same company, because they did a fantastic job,” Burgum said on CNN’s State of the Union. “Thankfully, the vandalism was small. It was bad … but the job that was done to fix the Reflecting Pool was done extremely well.”
Trump had previously alleged that a 350-foot gash was cut through the pool’s lining by someone using a “box-cutter or a knife of some kind.” He told reporters that the administration has pictures of the alleged gash, which will be released in court.
Appearing on ABC’s This Week, Burgum said there were “multiple gashes that add up to 350 feet,” and that “less than one-tenth of one percent” of the industrial liner had been damaged while “99.99% of the pool bottom is perfect.”
The pool was closed over the weekend for the Fourth of July fireworks display.
In posts on Truth Social, Trump shared numerous photos of the Reflecting Pool. On Sunday, he shared photos that were taken on June 18, just after the project was initially deemed complete and before the algae and peeling paint began to surface. On Monday, he posted several others, including at least one that was taken overnight.
Who was arrested and what were they arrested for?
Former Olympian David Hearn was arrested in conjunction with the vandalism to the Reflecting Pool.
(M. David Leeds/Getty)
The Interior Department said that as of Sunday, seven people had been arrested and seven others had been issued citations in connection with the alleged vandalism of the Reflecting Pool.
Last week, David Hearn, a former U.S. Olympic canoeist from Bethesda, Md., was indicted on a single felony count of destruction of property for allegedly pulling away a piece of the pool’s peeling liner, causing more than $1,000 worth of damage.
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said National Park Service employees saw Hearn “forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner” of the pool with both hands on June 19.
Hearn previously told the Associated Press that he was detained by Park Police and National Guard troops for five hours after touching a piece of the peeling paint.
He said he had stopped by the pool during a 64-mile bike ride, reached in and touched a chunk of paint still attached to the side, but did not remove it.
“I’m a curious citizen,” Hearn said. “I reached down to see what it felt like. It was very rubbery.”
Hearn could face 10 years in prison if he is convicted. In a statement, Hearn’s lawyers said that the indictment “reflects the administration’s effort to shift blame for their own failures.”
“These charges are outrageous and should be alarming to every American,” Hearn’s lawyers said.
What is the Reflecting Pool, and why did Trump want it cleaned?
A piece of the new blue paint that had peeled off from the bottom of the pool.
(Christine Kao/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The Reflecting Pool, which was built in the early 1920s, is more than 2,000 feet long and 167 feet wide, and sits between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument.
Trump’s push to clean the pool was part of his administration’s overall effort to beautify Washington, D.C., in anticipation of the events surrounding America’s 250th anniversary.
The president decried his predecessors for allowing the pool to turn green with algae and ordered that it be lined “American flag blue” so it would better reflect the Washington Monument.
Trump announced the clean-up project in April, saying he was inspired by an unnamed friend visiting from Germany who called the pool “filthy,” “disgusting” and “not representative of the country.”
“As a developer, I’ve probably built more than 100 swimming pools in different buildings I built, and I have some really good pool builders,” Trump said at that time.
Who worked on it and what did it cost?
The U.S. Department of the Interior awarded a no-bid contract to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, a Virginia-based company that had worked on the swimming pools at Trump’s golf club in Sterling, Va., to coat the bottom of the pool, and another to Green Water Solutions, an Ohio-based company, to install a so-called nanobubble system to kill algae.
Typically, government contracts require competitive bidding. But because the administration wanted the work done in time for celebrating the country’s 250th birthday, the Interior Department bypassed the bidding process.
Initially, Trump said the project would cost taxpayers $1.8 million. Federal records cited by ABC News show the cost had ballooned to more than $16 million.
In April, the pool was drained, and Trump shared photos of workers using paint rollers to coat the concrete bottom with blue sealant.
Trump told reporters on June 4 that the new coating would “last 50 to 100 years.”
On June 17, after the pool was refilled, the Interior Department said in a post on X that “advanced nanobubbler technology very effectively killed the algae,” and declared the water is “crystal clear.”
But within days, the water returned to its familiar green color. Park workers were seen pouring hydrogen peroxide into the pool to try to kill the algae. Then the lining on the bottom began to peel.
Trump said on Truth Social that contractors would likely have to drain the pool again to repair the bottom.
“What these terrible Vandals have done is a true affront to both Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, and should be dealt with accordingly,” Trump wrote.
In a statement, Atlantic Industrial Coatings said that it had “identified some areas in the Reflecting Pool that require repairs” and would return once the pool is drained to “make those needed repairs as part of the warranty.”
“These areas are a very small part of the massive 7-acre project, and do not indicate a failure of the liner,” the company said.
How is this connected to ’86 47′?
The remnants of markings depicting the numbers “86 47.”
(Aaron Schwartz/Reuters)
The president also suggested without evidence that the alleged vandalism of the Reflecting Pool was connected to grass on the National Mall that was recently altered to read “86 47,” a combination of numbers that officials have said constituted a threat against Trump, the 47th president.
According to Merriam-Webster, “86” is a slang term that means “to throw out,” “to get rid of” or “to refuse service to.” Its use broadened in recent years to include the meaning “to kill,” Merriam-Webster noted, adding: “We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.”
Authorities are investigating the matter.
“No different than the chemicals that were used on the National Mall, they used something similar in the Reflecting Pool to try to destroy and demean our beautiful work,” Trump wrote.
The president suggested that someone “put fertilizer in the water,” causing the algae.
On Sunday, Burgum seemed to contradict Trump’s claim, saying the algae was residual and came from reactivated supply lines.
“The algae is all gone. That was a momentary thing,” he said on CNN. “As it was being filled, there was algae in the pipes.”
What about the dead ducks?
A dead baby duck in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
(Aaron Schwartz/Reuters)
Amid repair work late last month, three duck carcasses were found in or near the Reflecting Pool, raising concerns that the algae or chemicals being used to clean the pool could be harming wildlife.
City Wildlife, a local animal rescue and rehabilitation group, recovered the bodies of the two dead ducks found in a pond near the pool and is conducting necropsies on them to determine what caused their deaths.
“They could have had exposure to the Reflecting Pool,” City Wildlife President April Linton told the Washington Post. “It could be something related to peeling paint or algae.”
In a statement, City Wildlife said that it can’t comment on the cause of those deaths until the necropsy results are received.
“We appreciate everyone’s concern for the duck family and other ducks currently visiting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool as it undergoes continued repairs,” the organization said. “City Wildlife’s Duck Watch team continues to monitor the situation closely, including daily dedicated checks on the Reflecting Pool.”
It added: “Given the high level of public interest and activity around the Reflecting Pool, we ask visitors to give the ducks plenty of space, refrain from feeding or handling them, and allow them to engage in their natural behaviors without disturbance.”