The Lincoln Pool in Washington is full of algae, and the bottom constructed at the special request of Donald Trump is loosening. The riot around the iconic monument completely escalated this weekend: a former Olympic canoeist and other “vandals” are blamed. But is that right?
Source: AD.nl
Everyone with a swimming pool knows: if there is something wrong with the quality of your swimming water, it’s time to get it back in order. Donald Trump is now also learning that lesson, with the difference that the pool he watches over is part of one of the most important monuments in his country.
The Lincoln Pool, part of the famous Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, was renovated on behalf of the president, but that is not going exactly as planned. At first there were already algae in the pool at a rapid pace, and this week the blue bottom that Trump insisted on adding also started to come loose.
LOOK. Just 12 days after reopening, the paint is now also peeling.
The situation got so out of hand this weekend that several people were arrested for allegedly trying to “destroy” the pond. Among them is David Carter Hearn, a 67-year-old former canoeist who participated in the Olympic Games three times.
He himself says that he simply touched an already detached flap of the new blue bottom out of curiosity, because he was interested in the material and the cause of the problem. But according to Trump, he and others were destroying government property. The president tweeted that the “vandals” could spend years in jail for this offense.
It appears to be an attempt to pin the blame for the rather failed renovation on people other than the president himself.
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, as it is officially called, is a large, shallow water basin that was created more than a century ago as a “dignified visual connection” between the monuments to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, which have a prominent place in the US seat of government.
Architect Henry Bacon deliberately designed the bath soberly. It thus became an enormous mirror in which the reflection of both monuments was visible. It gained iconic status, partly because Martin Luther Kings I have a dreamspeech from 1963 took place there.
However, the basin was a disaster architecturally, because there was no proper foundation underneath. It therefore leaked a lot of water. In 2010, Barack Obama attempted to fix things. He threw around 35 million dollars at it, but in vain.
The fundamental problem – replacing miles of rotten water pipes – was not solved. That is very expensive, as Trump also discovered in his first term as president. But with the US’s 250th anniversary approaching, he felt something had to be done.
It became a rush job: Trump called in a friendly contractor, as ‘The New York Times’ reconstructed. That “guy,” according to the president, was “incredible” at building swimming pools; He had previously done a job for a private golf club of the president.
New, striking color
The contractor again left the pipes undisturbed, but did give the bottom a new, striking color at the president’s request. Trump himself first suggested “turquoise, like in the Bahamas”, but ultimately settled on “American flag blue”.
The renovation turned out to be downright dramatic. The heat caused the water to become contaminated with huge clouds of algae. But what might be even worse: the new paint is peeling off in such large pieces that the original, gray concrete is visible again, through huge holes in the ground cover.
Empty
After crisis consultations with contractors, Trump has no choice but to conclude that the project has failed. The pond will probably need to be largely drained for quick repairs.
According to Trump, this is not the fault of the contractor, who secretly turned out not to have much experience with large public projects, but of the “vandals”. They allegedly cut open the paint layer with knives over a length of more than 75 meters and threw corrosive and destructive chemicals into the water. Evidence for those accusations is lacking.
