In secret, behind locked gates, our Nation's Oldest City dumped a landfill in a lake (Old City Reservoir), while emitting sewage in our rivers and salt marsh. Organized citizens exposed and defeated pollution, racism and cronyism. We elected a new Mayor. We're transforming our City -- advanced citizenship. Ask questions. Make disclosures. Demand answers. Be involved. Expect democracy. Report and expose corruption. Smile! Help enact a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore. We shall overcome!
Thursday, June 18, 2026
ANNALS OF TRUMPI$TAN: Reflecting Pool algae blooms have roared back, reaching highest levels in years (Meg Kelly & Maura Judkis, WaPo, June 18, 2026)
When I was a little boy growing up in Southern New Jersey, my Polish-American grandmother lived in Port Richmond, in Philadelphia, where there were horse-drawn huckster carriages hawking fish fruits, and vegetables. Concerning DONALD JOHN TRUMP's latest hare-brained scheme, my grandmother Slawinski would have asked of TRUMP, Ever heard a huckster hollering, "Rotten fish!!'?
Days after the completion this month of a $14 million renovation, the shallow water in the Lincoln Memorial’s Reflecting Pool had more algae in it than at any recorded point in the month of June for at least five years, according to a specialized analysis of satellite data.
President Donald Trump vowed in April to clean up what he called the “filthy” and “disgusting” water in the Reflecting Pool. He promised to resurface the basin to eliminate persistent leaking and to paint it “American flag blue.” Once the pool started to be refilled, on June 4, he praised its “clean, beautiful water.”
But the algae blooms that have long plagued the pool came roaring back, spawning more than a few conspiracy theories and much debate about the renovation. Some social media users said they suspected “bureaucrats” had seeded the algae bloom in an act of sabotage, while others claimed photos showing the reappearance of the algae were taken during the Biden years. Trump administration officials said the algae was caused by residual material in supply lines that had been dormant for weeks.
Regardless, there was a lot of it.
At The Washington Post’s request, Alana Menendez, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Virginia’s Department of Environmental Sciences, analyzed light-reflectance data from a European satellite called Sentinel-2. The satellite captures clear images of the Reflecting Pool several times a month, and the data it produces can be used to estimate the presence of chlorophyll-a, a pigment found in algae.
higher value of that metric, known as the normalized difference chlorophyll index (NDCI), points to more algae in the water, Menendez said.
Menendez’s analysis detected more algae in the reflecting pool in an image taken Saturday — in the week after it reopened — than in any June images going back to 2021. The algae level was among the highest measured in any month in the past two years, according to the analysis.
Hot and sunny weather — which the Washington area has been experiencing — creates conditions in which the plantlike aquatic organisms thrive. The D.C. area experienced a heat wave just as the pool was being refilled earlier this month.
Menendez found there was a strong indication of an algal bloom in the Reflecting Pool on March 10, when it was unseasonably hot. Just before construction began, on April 1, the bloom had reduced.
Normalized difference chlorophyll index data suggests more algae was in the Reflecting Pool on June 13 than at previous dates earlier in 2026. (Alana Menendez / University of Virginia /Alana Menendez / University of Virginia)
“We would expect June to have more algae naturally than February, March or April because there is more light availability and higher temperatures,” Menendez said.
The Interior Department, which oversees the Park Service and contracted for the work, said in a statement that it is treating the pool with hydrogen peroxide and using “high-tech nanobubble ozone technology” to effectively cut off the algae’s food supply.
White House spokesman Taylor Rogers said the nanobubble equipment would “keep the Reflecting Pool crystal clear.”
“Thanks to President Trump, new lining and industrial grade materials will permanently seal the Reflecting Pool, which previously leaked 16 million gallons per year and wasted countless taxpayer dollars,” he said.
Trump has not publicly commented on the algae problem. On Monday, he posted that he would host a Trump rally on July 4 “with the backdrop of the Lincoln Memorial and surrounding the beautifully new Reflecting Pool.”
Members of the National Park Service clean algae on Tuesday. (Jacquelyn Martin/Ap Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Algae has been an on-and-off problem for the 6.75 million-gallon Reflecting Pool since it was built in the 1920s. It quickly reappeared after a more than $30 million renovation that was completed in 2012, though that project also changed the source of the pool’s water: Previously, it had been fed from the city’s drinking water, but after the renovation the water was drawn from the Tidal Basin, saving the city 32 million gallons of water a year.
In its statement, the Interior Department said the Obama-era renovation “resulted in massive algae clumps taking over the pool’s surface following years of construction that cost taxpayers millions upon millions only to be broken and disgusting days later.”
Last month, a local advocacy organization sued to stop Trump’s changes to the Reflecting Pool, alleging that the Interior Departmentfailed to undergo required federal reviews for the project. The Trump administration in response called the work “routine maintenance” that will have “trivial aesthetic and environmental impact” and was not subject to certainenvironmental reviews.
(Video: Maura Judkis/The Washington Post)
Contractors finished the project before a federal judge could rule in the case.
As the pool was being filled earlier this month, Ed Stierli, an official with a different advocacy group, National Parks Conservation Association, wondered if the the dark paint color was increasing the water temperature, exacerbating the algae problem.
These are all questions that would normally be answered during that review process that just was not done in this case,” he told The Post.
By midday on Tuesday, the area was filling up with summer tourists and some locals who came to see how green the pool had become.
“It’s the biggest tourist attraction now,” called out a biker as he wheeled past.
Imogen Piper and Dan Diamond contributed to this report.
No comments:
Post a Comment