President Trump’s high-profile renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has devolved into a public embarrassment, with an “unproven” nanobubbler technology failing to stop an algae bloom while the coating beneath it now appears to be leaching toxic chemicals into the water.
The saga — full of botched timelines, unverified vandalism claims and now toxicity concerns — has become an unlikely metaphor for the administration’s broader instinct to paper over problems rather than fix them. A reflecting pool in more ways than one.
Rushed a $14 million makeover
Trump ordered the historic pool between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument repainted “American flag blue” ahead of the country’s 250th anniversary, at a cost that ballooned from $13.1 million to over $14 million. Contractors used products from Rhino Linings, a truck-bed coating company, including a barrel of “RHINO 405 A Thixotropic High Viscosity Epoxy Resin,” which OSHA data sheets flag as toxic to aquatic life with long-lasting effects and as a strong irritant. According to The New York Times, crews under a rushed deadline tied to a UFC birthday event for Trump at the White House (he’s a Gemini) removed the pool’s “nanobubblers” — devices meant to keep the water oxygenated — before the project was finished.
