US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump’s plan to carry out a makeover on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington has gone from a simple renovation project to a controversy bubbling over for his administration domestically.
It’s only got more bizarre over recent days, with some people ‘protesting’ in favour of the algae, and the arrest of a US Olympian.
So how did we get here? Trump had championed a makeover for the 610-meter-long pool, bringing in contractors to drain it and paint it “American flag blue.”
The Reflecting Pool is hallowed Washington real estate. It was from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famed “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963 to several hundred thousand people gathered around the pool.
The renovation is among the preparations for the 250th anniversary celebrations of independence from Britain in the United States this summer, on 4 July.
It’s among the several renovations during Trump’s second term, including tearing down the east wing of the White House for a ballroom.
What went wrong?
But not long after the job on the pool was complete, the paint began to visibly peel, and the gleaming waters promptly refilled with green pond scum.
As workers scrambled to pump out murky water and dumped hydrogen peroxide into the pool, Trump took no responsibility for what many observers chalked up to shoddy workmanship.
The president is now alleging that someone damaged it intentionally.
“We’ve had some real problems with vandalism at the beautiful Reflecting Pool,” he posted on his social media site on Friday night.
In another lengthy post over the weekend, the 80-year-old Republican claimed renovations had “worked perfectly” before “disgraceful vandalism,” accusing unnamed saboteurs of taking “some form of knife or blade” to the pool to “put a 250-foot-long gash” into it, and pouring “corrosive and destructive chemicals into the pool.”
He offered no details to substantiate his claim.
However, the project has come under scrutiny over its contracting process. The New York Times reported that the Trump administration had awarded a contract to a business linked to a longtime Trump supporter to install the water-purification system in the pool.
On Sunday, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that work will begin immediately on “fixing the seriously vandalised” Reflecting Pool.
“I just inspected it, and could only say to myself, and those gathered around me, WOW, who would do such a thing?” he continued.
It’s unclear how much that may add to the $14 million (€12.21 million) cost reported by US media thus far.
Olympian or vandal
One person accused of being a Reflecting Pool vandal is former Olympian David Hearn, who told The Washington Post he was on a bike ride when he stopped at the Lincoln Memorial to see the Reflecting Pool renovations for himself.
After he leaned down to touch part of the detached blue paint, the 67-year-old was surrounded by two members of the National Guard and arrested by US Park Police officers on a misdemeanour charge of destruction of government property, the Post reported.
“I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realised what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs,” Hearn told the newspaper.
He added, “I reached in there, and I was able to grab the end of that flapping piece, the already peeling piece. It was still attached to the bottom. I didn’t remove anything.”
An AFP photographer on Friday saw that bits of blue paint were being pumped out of the pool by workers, along with green algae that has blossomed since it was recently refilled, turning the water a swampy colour.
In one place, someone had traced the word “TRUMP” into the green scum on the bottom of the pool, where the blue paint is patchy.
With reporting by PA and AFP