Welcome to Washington Secrets and another week in the swamp. We spent part of the weekend with the crowds at the Lincoln Memorial, checking out the algae in the Reflecting Pool. As luck would have it, the nation’s top experts on cleaning up water supplies are in town. Plus, we wonder why it was Donald Trump who announced the resignation of the British prime minister…Ashley Bair stood still amid the crowd circling the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Sunday afternoon, her head tilted down. It just so happens she is an expert on algae and is in town for a conference.Bair pointed out the yellow carpet of dead cells that had sunk to the pool floor, and after describing the conditions that encourage algal blooms, and the nanobubble technology that can kill them, she stared directly at the water at our feet.
“And we have a dead duck,” she said, “which makes me a little concerned about toxins.”Its ragged, downy feathers suggested the duckling was only a few weeks old.A gentle breeze had propelled its tiny frame into the southeastern corner of the pool, where it bobbed gently on its side.A crowd gathered around us. “Terrible,” said one passerby, while a photographer crouched, his lens inches above the water.The reflecting pool has become yet another metaphor for President Donald Trump’s Washington, or a Rorschach test for the Left and Right. Among the tourists taking photos were locals who had come to see for themselves just how bad the algae had become after a $14 million refurbishment, designed to enhance the reflections and spruce up the site for the nation’s 250th birthday.A new, “American flag blue” lining had clearly parted company with the base of the pool in one section, where Trump blamed vandals for the damage. And over the weekend, he announced it would have to be drained again.The scrutiny might only intensify this week. The country’s leading experts on water purification, filtration, pumping, treatment, and so on are in the city for the American Water Works Association’s annual conference.Which is how Dr. Bair came to be standing at the water’s edge, staring at a dead duckling.The algae, she said, had little to do with the pool’s new lining. Maybe its deep blue color would absorb more light, heating the water a little more. But that wasn’t the problem.“Algae will grow because there’s too many nutrients in the water,” she said. “That’s it.“It’s warm. There’s lots of sunlight, along with carbon dioxide and nutrients.”Bair said initial reports indicated the algae were harmless. However, the dead duckling could indicate the presence of cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, which can replace green algae if conditions are right and which produce toxins harmful to animals. More tests were needed to know for sure.Around us, the battle to clean the pool was in full swing. The hum of generators hung in the air.Parks staff in waders were using suction hoses to vacuum up blooms. Their hoses emptied a flood into drains, where it almost glowed like run-off from the world’s biggest urinal.Bair pointed out the fizzing water at the center of the pool. Nanobubblers, she said, disgorging a froth of ozone. Treating the water with an oxidant, she explained, caused the algal cells to burst.A steady stream of the curious lapped the pool all day.“I came by to thank the algae,” said a New Yorker visiting his daughters for Father’s Day. “The single-celled algae won.”At one point, the unmistakable sound of Adolf Hitler addressing the Nuremberg Congress wafted through the air, “Deutschland Heil” and all. (Secrets got short shrift when asking the Stars and Stripes-clad man why he was playing it on his phone. “My intellect can handle it,” he said. “My IQ is 260, what’s yours?”)Two Scottish soccer fans wandered down from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for a closer look. They were unimpressed by how the pool, the lining, and the algae had been politicized.“You can’t blame Trump for this,” said Stuart, making the drive from Boston to Miami for the next World Cup game. “I’m not Trump’s biggest fan, but not even he can control the algae.”And maybe the nanobubbles and hydrogen peroxide poured into the pool won’t control them for long.Bair said the cleanup efforts did not address the fundamental issue of nutrients, such as phosphates, in the water. Killing the cells by bursting them or “lysing” them returns the nutrients to the water, causing “rebound bloom” if the cleanup efforts are halted, she said.“I give it a week,” she said. “Then it’s green again.”NostraTrumpus
