Trump's Reflecting Pool Disaster Exposed as More Details Revealed on Firm That Won No-Bid Contract
An expert analysis conducted this week found algae levels in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool at their highest levels in at least five years.
New reports have revealed the full scope of President Donald Trump's disastrous renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which the National Park Service this week has been scrambling to clean up.
A Thursday report in The New York Times revealed that the firm tapped to install the pool's water purification system, Greenwater Services, was given a $1.7 million contract that "bypassed the competitive-bidding process that is typically required" for such projects.
Even though Greenwater had only received one other federal contract in the past, NPS said it bypassed the normal bidding process on the grounds that "there was no time to consider other offers because the system had to be installed in time for events celebrating the country’s 250th birthday," reported the Times.
The Times also found that Greenwater is owned by JJ Cafaro Investment Trust, whose owner is a Trump donor and "a neighbor to Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club in Florida."
The firm's work has come under scrutiny in recent days after a massive algae bloom erupted in the pool, which prompted NPS workers to dump containers of hydrogen peroxide into the water, which had turned a fluorescent green.
As noted by the Times, the NPS refilled the pool before Greenwater had installed a permanent water purification system, which the paper wrote raised "the risk that it would quickly be clouded with algae."
While algae blooms have long been common in the Reflecting Pool, The Washington Post on Thursday commissioned expert analysis of satellite imagery and determined that this year's bloom was the largest to occur in the last five years and that "algae levels spiked days after Trump’s renovation was completed."
Alana Menendez, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Virginia’s Department of Environmental Sciences, told the Post that there was more algae in the Reflecting Pool on the first week after its reopening than in any other June satellite images of the pool going all the way back to 2021.
Algae blooms aren't the only problem facing the pool, as CNN reported on Thursday that some of the blue material that had been installed at the bottom of the pool as part of the renovation has started peeling off.
Specifically, CNN said that its reporters "observed a flap of blue material that was partially attached to the bottom in one area of the pool and floating toward the top," although the network added that "it is unclear if the material is paint or sealant, and it's unclear what caused it to come up."
