By Scott Simon | NPR
Published Jun 20, 2026 11:30 AM
A National Park Service employee uses a vacuum to clean the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
(
Mark Schiefelbein
/
AP
)
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has witnessed more than a century of American history, in all its heartbreak and majesty. Crowds have gathered around it in protest and in praise, to denounce American wars and hear great voices sing and speak.
Today, it's the center of a slimy controversy.
President Donald Trump said in April he found the water in the reflecting pool "filthy" and "disgusting." He authorized a no-bid contract to resurface the basin of the 2,000-foot long pool and paint it "American flag blue" in time for July 4th celebrations.
"I have a guy who's unbelievable at doing swimming pools," the president crowed, before the National Park Service gave out no-bid contracts for sealing and upgrades.
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After weeks of renovation, the project has cost taxpayers more than $14 million and … the reflecting pool looks green. And I mean green. Like the Chicago River on St. Patrick's Day. But that river is dyed green for a day. The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is green because of algae.
Look, algae happens. It's clouded the reflecting pool since it was first filled in 1923. Algae blooms flourish when sunlight falls on warm, sluggish water — like you'd find in a shallow, still pool absorbing the glare and swelter of a Washington, D.C., summer.
But a University of Virginia satellite analysis commissioned by the Washington Post saw more algae in the Reflecting Pool this month than at any other time in the past five years.
The Interior Department says workers have deployed "a state-of-the-art ozone nanobubbler filtration system" to banish the algae.
"President Donald J. Trump is an expert builder who has fixed the reflecting pool for good," spokesperson Kate Martin said in a statement this week, "unlike the failed and extremely costly attempt by Obama and Biden."
That's a reference to a major project during President Barack Obama's first term to stop the pool from sinking and add a filtration system.
In these deeply divisive and partisan times, it's good to remind ourselves that many issues aren't just Republican red or Democratic blue. The Reflecting Pool algae doesn't care about our party lines. It's green, and it's not going anywhere.
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