Topline
The Trump administration completed its $14.2 million renovations to the National Mall’s Reflecting Pool last week, intending to color the water feature “American Flag Blue,” but days later the pool’s notorious algae returned to color the reservoir bright green.
Key Facts
Photos and videos appeared to show National Park Service workers in waders cleaning up the algae with hand tools on Sunday, although the pool still appeared green in photos the next day.
“The National Park Service is actually maintaining the beautifully completed Reflecting Pool,” Katie Martin, a spokesperson for the Department of the Interior, told Forbes in a statement, blaming past presidential administrations for failing to adequately clean up the algae bloom.
Martin said the Trump administration installed “nanobubblers” that “successfully destroyed the algae bloom that has plagued every pool reopening since 1922.”
Martin said the algae was “dead and being vacuumed up as we speak,” and thanked President Donald Trump for “cleaning up the reflecting pool for good.”
The Department of the Interior previously told CNN last week the algae still visible was “residual” from supply lines that were dormant during the renovation process, and its return was “part of the normal startup process.”
Key Background
Throughout his second term in office, Trump has been heavily involved in projects to change the aesthetics of the U.S. capital, including tearing down the White House’s East Wing to make room for a ballroom and proposing a massive triumphal arch near Arlington Cemetery. In April, the Reflecting Pool was drained so it could be repainted “American Flag Blue,” Trump told reporters. Public records show the Trump administration spent $14.2 million on the renovations, which were awarded in a no-bid contract to a firm that had previously completed work at his golf club in Sterling, Virginia, the New York Times reported. On June 4, both Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the project was finished and water would begin pouring back into the pool, which Burgum also said was “just in time for our nation’s 250th birthday” on July 4.