Algae Returns to Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool Days After Renovation

Green algae and other organic material have returned to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, just days after the Trump administration wrapped its roughly $14 million renovation of the monument.

Photographers and reporters from multiple news outlets saw the buildup across the pool throughout this week.

An algae spot near the World War II Memorial reportedly expanded between Wednesday and Thursday amid wet and warm weather, the Washington Post reports.

President Donald Trump repeatedly insisted his project would clean up the pool, which he said past predecessors left in a “disgusting” state.

“That’s not what our country is about,” Trump told reporters during an impromptu tour of the renovation last month. “Our country is about beauty, cleanliness, safety, great people. Not a filthy capital.”

The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.

The Interior Department says the algae is only temporary.

“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,” an agency spokesperson told The Independent. “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,” the spokesperson added. “President Donald J. Trump is an expert builder who has fixed the Reflecting Pool for good unlike the failed and extremely costly attempt by Obama and Biden.”

Staff at the Reflecting Pool have also been seen using Induclor, a chlorine compound used to control algae in bodies of water.

The Reflecting Pool, completed in 1923, has long struggled with algae outbreaks, which can fester in Washington’s humid summer weather.

It was spotted shortly after the Obama administration completed a $34 million renovation in 2012, the Post reports

The president’s algae issue this time around is the latest source of controversy over the pool project.

He has also faced scrutiny for the no-bid, roughly $14 million set of contracts awarded to finish the renovation, which Trump originally said would cost about a seventh of that price and only take a week.

In May, the Cultural Landscape Foundation, sued the Interior Department and National Park Service, alleging that the “current application of blue paint to the basin of Reflecting Pool on the National Mall is being done in violation of federal law.”

The Reflecting Pool project, which ended up taking six weeks, is part of a mass effort by the president to remake Washington in his image, much of it in time for America’s 250th anniversary celebrations this July.

The push has included unilaterally tearing down the East Wing of the White House to build a new ballroom, proposing a new victory arch monument, and renovating the Kennedy Center, which the administration pushed to rename the Trump-Kennedy Center.

Perhaps the most striking project of all is set for its big debut on Sunday, when the administration will host a UFC fight for the president’s birthday in a custom-built arena on the White House lawn.

An ongoing federal lawsuit from the Public Integrity Project seeking to stop the fight alleges the entire event is “deeply corrupt” because it gives the UFC “unfettered access” to a taxpayer-funded landmark.