One of President Donald Trump’s numerous vanity projects, along with his White House ballroom, has been the draining, cleaning, repainting and resurfacing of the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall.
Following the completion of the $14 million project last week, Trump claimed the pool now has “beautiful, clean water” and placed the blame for the “terrible, disgusting … garbage-ridden” water before the renovation on previous administrations.
However, less than a week after the pool was refilled, Washington Post photographers captured images of algae back in the newly resurfaced body of water.
The Post reported that a large patch of algae near the World War II Memorial grew significantly larger during a rainy Wednesday.
In response to the Post’s inquiry, a Trump official passed the buck, claiming the algae was left over from the previous tenants of the White House.
“What you are seeing is residual algae from the supply lines, which have been sitting dormant for eight weeks while construction has been taking place. It’s part of the normal startup process,” Katie Martin, an Interior Department spokesperson, said in a statement to the Post.
“We are removing the algae, and the nanobubblers will maintain the pool and keep it algae-free. President Donald J. Trump is an expert builder who has fixed the Reflecting Pool for good, unlike the failed and extremely costly attempt by Obama and Biden,” the statement continued.
Trump on Thursday bragged to reporters in the Oval Office about the resurfacing of the Reflecting Pool’s basin.
“It always leaked because it was done in stone,” Trump said. “Now it’s done properly. It’s not going to leak at all.”
Algae also reappeared in the pool in 2012 after a $34 million renovation, according to the Post’s report.