One of President Donald Trump’s favorite beauty projects in Washington is to make the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool look as blue as part of the American flag.
Get into nature. Algae blooms in the water turn it a swampy green color.
“Can you see it in my photo? Oh, well, I’ll use a filter to hide the algae,” said Farrah Lu, a 43-year-old Chinese tourist.
The intrusion came just days after the pool’s repainting project was completed as part of Trump’s efforts to make his mark on Washington with projects such as the White House ballroom and the massive arch along the Potomac River.
Under Trump’s order, the rectangular pool, designed to capture the reflection of the Washington Monument on the National Mall, was drained and painted what he called “American flag blue.”
This is hallowed ground in Washington: It was on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 that civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech to hundreds of thousands of people gathered around the pool.
Alas, last weekend’s hot weather apparently caused an algae bloom in the pool.
“When I think of the reflecting pool, I see reflections of some monuments in the pool. That’s what the name says, so this didn’t live up to my expectations,” said Ravi Desai from Australia. “But overall, I still think it’s very beautiful. And we’re just tourists here.”
The National Park Service said it is using pumps to treat the water, so-called nanobubble ozone technology to kill algae, and hydrogen peroxide, which is said to be milder than chlorine.
The pool project has faced scrutiny over its multimillion-dollar cost and the process of obtaining a noncompete agreement for the contract, which favored a company that had already done work for Trump’s golf club.
Nicole Leguilow, a 66-year-old resident of neighboring Virginia, said she was not disappointed with the pool and that the algae was algae. But she complained that the money spent on Trump’s effort was “definitely not worth it.”
“That’s money that could be spent more wisely on things that the people of this country need,” Legillo said.
LL.B./Ph.D./M.D.
This article was generated from automated news agency feeds without modifications to the text.
