Drained reflecting pool reveals Trump’s ‘American flag blue’ liner is now closer to gray | Donald Trump
The bottom surface of the newly drained Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is visibly faded, having been covered this spring with a protective coating in the color Donald Trump called “American flag blue.”
An Associated Press reporter and photographer viewed the fenced reflecting pool from atop the Washington Monument on Wednesday. The new liner looks grayer than when the pool was repainted and filled with water in early June. The debris, which could be seen after the pool was drained earlier this week, was largely destroyed after work crews removed it.
Trump’s troubled effort to renovate the landmark has gone far beyond his initial goal of having the reflecting pool ready by July 4 for the nation’s 250th birthday.
The president initially suggested the renovations would cost $1.5 million, but the bill had ballooned to more than $16 million by June.
Trump had said the repairs would take a century, but within days of the project’s completion last month, the water was beset by algae growth and pieces of the new lining began peeling away from the bottom.
Ohio-based Green Water Solutions, also known as Greenwater Services, was awarded a $1.7 million contract to install a water purification system in the reflecting pool, while Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings was awarded $14.7 million to repaint and waterproof the pool’s concrete floor.
Trump has repeatedly blamed vandals for the peeling paint, but critics claim it was due to shoddy repair work.
Trump said, without citing any evidence, that vandals had created a “350-foot breach” in the ship and caused other problems. No major slash marks were immediately visible from the Washington Monument view on Wednesday. It was not possible to examine the entire pool more closely due to a dark fence surrounding its perimeter.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the agency that oversees the National Park Service, said the plan for the pool, once the water is drained and debris from Independence Day fireworks is cleaned up, is simple: “Repair any vandalism that has been done. Refill it.” He was talking to conservative podcaster Katie Miller.
Court documents show the National Park Service notified U.S. park police of a June 9 incident in which a sharp knife or razor was said to have cut through the pool’s new lining.
Former Olympic canoe racer David Hearn pleaded not guilty last week in D.C. Superior Court to a charge of willfully damaging a reflecting pool. Hearn said he reached into the pool to examine the peeled fill and left a piece behind when a park employee told him to.
His lawyers and other critics of the Trump administration derided the case as an abuse of prosecutorial power and suggested he was being scapegoated for the poor job he did to repair the reflecting pool.
Court records show at least three other people were charged with misdemeanors in the same court for allegedly removing paint chips from the pool. All three pleaded not guilty at the first hearing.
The work on the reflecting pool is just one of many projects Trump is spearheading in the nation’s capital. Most prominently, he demolished the East Wing of the White House to build a $400 million ballroom and planned to build a soaring arch between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington national cemetery.
