by Kate Yandell
ANALYSIS — President Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed vandals for damaging the new blue lining of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which is now peeling, as well as for algae in the water. But the administration has not provided evidence to back up the president’s claims. Experts say the pool’s ills have a variety of plausible explanations that do not involve intentional harm.
Installing linings on pools and making sure they properly adhere is challenging, experts in pools and waterproof coatings have told news outlets, and improper surface prep or water intrusion can cause peeling, they said. Meanwhile, algae would be expected in a shallow, still, unshaded pool fed by nutrient-rich water that had been painted dark blue, Steven Chapra, a water quality modeler and professor emeritus at Tufts University, told us.
Despite these competing explanations, Trump has repeatedly asserted that vandals are to blame. “You know, we have 100- … I think 290-, 300-foot slit right through it,” Trump said at a June 22 press event, after news reports surfaced of blue pieces of the pool’s lining separating from the bottom. “Probably a box cutter or a knife of some kind.”
He claimed at the same event that someone may have put fertilizer in the pool, part of a series of claims that someone had poured in some substance or chemicals. “They did something to create the algae,” he said.
