The U.S. may have lost its war against Iran, but there is another war that President Donald Trump still might be able to win. And that’s his war on algae in Washington, D.C.’s Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Maybe. President Trump has droned on repeatedly about the Reflecting Pool, insisting that it’s never been properly cared for and looks like a disgusting mess. Trump recently drained the pool and ordered the bottom painted dark blue in an attempt to make the water look bluer in a $14 million renovation. The president failed to understand that what makes water look blue is the reflection of the sky, so painting the bottom doesn’t achieve what he thought it would. But more importantly, the color of the water is often dependent on the amount of green algae. There’s been some amount of schadenfreude by liberals in recent days as algae has inundated the Reflecting Pool after Trump’s declaration that it looks better than ever. The Washington Post even had an expert conduct an analysis looking at years of satellite data, and it appears there’s more algae in the 6.75 million-gallon pool than at any time since 2021.
To add insult to injury, there are reports from multiple journalists that the blue paint at the bottom of the Reflecting Pool has been peeling off in chunks and floating to the top. Workers were seen on Wednesday dumping bottles of hydrogen peroxide into the pool. And the U.S. Department of the Interior insists the algae is a normal part of the renovation process, telling news station WUSA 9 that the algae is a product of the “dormant supply lines during eight weeks of construction.” Interior says they’re now deploying nanobubble tech to clear the water.
