Workers racing to turn reflecting pool blue for Trump may be at risk, union warns | Washington DC

A union that oversees the facility has warned that workers renovating one of Washington DC’s most historically symbolic sites at the behest of Donald Trump could risk their safety as they race to finish the US 250th anniversary celebrations on time.

The union investigation focused on the reflecting pool on the National Mall in the US capital: Scene from Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963 — after it was drained and fenced off from the public to give contractors a chance to remediate it by July 4th.

The pool, which has been a Washington landmark since it was excavated in 1922, is currently the scene of intense restoration activity; its usual watery surface is instead littered with vehicles and work equipment. Tourists visiting the area found their vision blurred by the black tarpaulin.

Leaks and algae blooms have dogged the 2,000ft pool located between the Lincoln and George Washington memorial monuments for decades, turning its water green and roiling previous plans for expensive government-commissioned repairs, including one commissioned by the Barack Obama administration.

Last month, promising to fix the problem once and for all, the Trump administration awarded a no-bid contract to Virginia-based company Atlantic Industrial Coatings to waterproof and repaint the pool.

The president told reporters that the company had successfully completed work on the swimming pool at its golf club in Sterling, Virginia. With a patriotic flourish, he ordered the company to repaint the pool floor “American flag blue.”

Other companies doing similar work have also expressed outrage at being denied the chance to compete for the contract, according to Herbert Zaldivar, the company’s director of business development. International Union of Painters and Allied Tradesvisited the site as an observer.

Now the award threatens to boomerang, with Trump vastly downplaying the cost of the contract and Interior Department officials responsible for the site reportedly dissatisfied with the company’s work.

The New York Times reported It was stated that the Ministry of Internal Affairs personnel complained about bubbles and small holes forming in one of the layers that provide waterproofing of the pool. The documents also revealed concerns about mottling of varying shades of blue on the pool floor resulting from uneven application of colored waterproofing, and fears that a May 22 deadline to complete the work could be missed.

Meanwhile, it turned out that the real cost of the contract, which Trump initially told reporters would be $1.8 million, was $13.1 million. Amid the controversy, Trump distanced himself from the company, denying he used it, contradicting previous statements he had made, and insisting he was not involved in signing the contract.

Zaldivar, who visited the facility on a stormy day last week, said he was contacted by union-affiliated companies wanting to know why the regular tender process was bypassed.

“I’m here to verify whether the company is compliant and following the correct guidelines,” the union representative said. “It is very rare that a job like this, being a publicly funded contract, does not go to competitive bidding.

“This did not go through the correct processes, so we lost the chance for a union-affiliated contractor to be part of the competition.”

The federal government has the authority to award contracts noncompetitively, but only when there is a risk that competition would cause “serious harm” to the government.

Atlantic Industrial Coatings’ statement is as follows: website According to official databases, she had never been awarded a federal government contract as a “woman-owned advanced coating application company.”

Zaldivar said he was concerned about the safety of workers on the project, none of whom were willing to talk to him. “Even though I come and try to chat with the workers, they are afraid to touch the subject,” he said. “With this project, they are trying to rush a timeline that is likely to leave some liability to the contractor.

“Chemicals are dangerous. My concern is often the level of risk when rushed. Are workers taking the right steps to protect themselves?”

Richard Jones, the company superintendent working on the site, responded “no comment” to a series of questions from the Guardian and referred all questions to the National Park Service. “This is with the person we have a contract with,” he said.

A spokesman for the Department of the Interior, the park service’s parent agency, said: “There is no merit to these accusations. Like every federal agency, we comply with all laws and regulations designed to ensure fair treatment and safety in the workplace.”

“Unlike Barack Obama’s $35 million-plus, 18-month, and immediately failed effort to repair the reflecting pool, President Trump is an expert builder and will be doing the job for generations to come.”

Surveying the cordoned-off scene near the Lincoln Memorial, Al Havea, a retired official with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, expressed fears about air pollution from the paving materials used while riding a bike with two friends.

“All these things are volatile,” he said. “People inhale toxic chemicals. The risk to the public is not taken into account in the application of this substance. I think they are using volatile organic chemicals. There is no information about it. It is not transparent.”

Tourists from afar expressed a mixture of disappointment and surprise at what they saw. “This is very disappointing and disrupts historical integrity,” said Michelle Criswell, a federal government worker from Oklahoma City who toured the site with her husband, Michael, citing the site’s importance in the campaign for Black civil rights.

Criswell, who is African American, added: “I came here for the history and I’ve been looking forward to seeing this site for a while and this is what I see: a row of black tarps. I feel like everything that’s been done has been done on purpose.”