Why Trump’s Reflecting Pool Repairs Are in Trouble

President Trump wants to fix the Lincoln Memorial's reflecting pool, but it doesn't seem to be going to plan.Earlier this week, we reported that the contract to repaint and resurface the reflecting pool, which President Trump said would cost about $1 .8 million, was actually gonna cost about seven times that, $13 .1 million.On Tuesday morning, President Trump wrote a long truth social post, which calls me out by name and defends the contract, saying that it is a deeply complicated work of smart and beautiful construction.The reflecting pool is a national icon.It's a part of so many people's conception of Washington and America.But the things that make it beautiful also make it a real nightmare to keep up.

It's very, very long, and that means lots of joints between the concrete slabs.Those leak out 16 million gallons of water every year.The pool is also very shallow.That makes it a petri dish for the growth of algae, which make the pool look green.The Obama administration spent more than $35 million trying to fix these problems and basically failed.President Trump, though, has said he wants the pool to be blue, specifically what he calls American flag blue.

So they're applying basically a waterproofing compound that's also used in swimming pools or pipes.And as part of that compound, they're adding this blue color.But some Interior Department staffers have noticed issues with the waterproof coating that's being applied to the pool.They noticed bubbles, small holes, and also inconsistent color.were more blue than others.Folks that I've talked to who know the reflecting pool well say that if you don't repair the plumbing underneath the pool, then you may end up with another big bloom of algae which, no matter what color you paint the bottom of the pool, is still going to make the pool look green.

The other issue which we reported on earlier this week was questions about timing.The Trump administration justified giving this out as a no -bid contract because they said they had no time to consider other bids.President Trump said on a couple different occasions that he had personally found the contractor to do this waterproofing and painting in the pool.

A guy who's unbelievable at doing swimming pools.

That's not the way that the law says contracts should be established.Federal agencies, when they need a job done, are supposed to seek out, whenever they can, multiple bids from multiple bidders to make sure they're getting the best work for the lowest price.However, the Interior Department did not do that.Instead, they just said, look, we want to go fast, we want to be done by tomorrow.this summer so we can have the pool in good shape for the 250th anniversary.The contract was awarded on April 3rd.

It's supposed to be done by May 22nd.That doesn't seem to be happening.Instead, what we've been told is they are about 35 % done with a waterproof coating on the bottom.And the documents we've seen showed that on Sunday, they were 0 % done with another key part of this job, which is to replace the joints between the slabs.What President Trump is saying now is he'd never worked with this company before, and he doesn't even know them.We've reached out to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the company that's leading this work to apply waterproofing on the pool and they've declined comment.

It's a little bit ironic that the method and the contractor they chose may actually be moving so slow that they will miss their own deadline.