Crews draining the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool again as part of troubled revamp
What a bunch of incompetent idiots.
https://abcnews.com/Politics/wireStory/crews-draining-lincoln-memorial-reflecting-pool-part-trumps-134656303Open linkView original on lemmy.world
73 replies
A reminder that more people have been arrested over this than over the Epstein Files.
Maybe those arrested should have just been millionaires and they wouldn't have had that issue.
Fill drain, fill drain, fill drain! You have no idea the physical toll that three renovations have on a pool!
I understood this office reference and appreciated it greatly!!!
Snip snap snip!
And exactly what will this same company that fucked it up the first time do differently this time?
There will probably be even more digits on the invoice, I suspect. So that part will be different.
This time we'll spend taxpayer dollars on 24/7 armed guards. Guarantees everyone has something to reflect on when they're, ya know, reflecting.
I hope the next guy in office forces the trump crime family to reimburse the government coffers for every taxpayer dollar he's spent on corrupt dealings
Wasnt it recently fenced up? SAD!
Charge even more money, of course.
Holy shit I thought this was a joke
I don't have the link but there's an entire video of it.
lmao
No.
The supposed "vandalism", the "long gashes made with a sharp knife", is most likely the edges of the tyres cutting into the paint by pinching it against the concrete substrate.
This orange dickhead did the damage himself because he couldn't drag his bloated, obese carcass a mere few hundred yards to pretend he knew what was being done.
Incompetence and grift is what "America" has become. A third rate has-been of a country descending into a farce that satire writers would have been ridiculed for putting on paper.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-motorcade-reflecting-pool/
Snopes seems to think its true and that some of the paint was wet. Its so dumb.
What a waste of water when all that water could have been wasted by an AI data center.
Joe Brandon shit in my pants, drain my pants!
This whole project is hooking the reflecting pool up to be used for cooling the ballroom data center.
It's going to end up in the same river it was originally removed from. They haven't used city water to fill it for a while now.
This water is now full of chemicals, toxic algae and disintegrating epoxy though? They wouldn't just put this into a public river, wait until the EPA hears about this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No chemicals, the peroxide they dumped in as already broken down into water and oxygen. Up until recently there was lots of raw sewage being dumped into the Potomac. Didn't the epa already get dismantled?
"troubled revamp" is such a nice way of putting it
Imperial media playing its role.
I honestly struggle to understand how a pool that has been clean for decades suddenly can't be kept clean.
To be fair to the regime (there's something I never thought I'd type) the reflecting pool had been kept clean in the past by paying people (National Park Service workers) to wade out into it and clean it on the regular. Then the DOGE crew laid off a ton of Park Service personnel. Then our dear leader began howling about the green water.
This timeline may imply some details that I've got wrong, but it's hard to be sympathetic to the regime, given the general picture of its priorities it paints, which I believe is generally correct.
Yet another quietly ignored DOGE fuck-up
I mean, I honestly don't like Trump. That said, the pool was originally drinking water, and an Obama era revamp switched it to filtered tidal water. The water that fills it now has way more organic molecules, even with the filtering, leading to algae blooms. The blooms can't really be treated with standard algaecide due to its effect on wild life.
Trump made the situation worse by painting the bottom of the pool. But the reason is was good for decades prior was due to being drinking water, which has far less capability to host life.
Many pools filled with potable (drinking) water grow algae if the chemicals are out of balance. Blaming the water source may seem like the easiest answer, but there are a lot of factors to consider. Here’s a reputable pool website discussing pools with algae problems and how to treat them.
Thanks for the link, but I actually do understand how pools and algae growth functions. I'm a biochemist (or, at least I was), and have been taking care of pools off and on most of my life.
It would be a fuck ton more difficult to manage a pool with tidal water as a source compared to potable water. Its not the only reason the pool has grown more algae, and its still ultimately due to mismanagement during the Trump administration (i.e. not monitoring/managing the algae level and water source). However, ignoring how the switch to tidal water effected the number and frequency of algae blooms is disingenuous.
Are we doing a "blame the right for everything and not attempt to be honest" thing because that is their go-to? I mean, I'm down I guess at this point, but can I get a wink or something when we are doing it?
Anyway, here is an article discussing it: https://cen.acs.org/environment/water/why-the-reflecting-pool-turns-green/104/web/2026/06
I never asserted to “blame the right,” in my argument, just stated that even under ideal conditions algae happens. Your initial assertion was that the tidal water was to blame. I merely stated that the situation is more complex and other factors could be contributing as well.
The article you provided states that algal blooms happened prior to the switch to tidal water, which provides evidence against your initial argument, that tidal water is the cause.
The article you sited is not a scientific evaluation of the reflection pool fails to provide any data on the frequency of algal bloom events, the chemistry of the water, and the impact of the local environment (even if it comes from a reputable source). Scientists are trained in knowing the difference between opinion/hypotheticals and data driven papers.
You eluded to multiple factors in your follow up comment that I agree with, such as frequency of monitoring and overall management. These factors and other potential unknowns could be contributing to the blooms.
You're on lemmy. Of course they are.
Personally, I don't think it should have ever been on drinking water. Moving it off of it was the right move.
I mean, I agree. The changes during the PBA administration made sense and were better for the environment and Washington DC people.
Allegedly
Which part is allegedly?
The grift is strong with this one. Drain and refill the swamp, robbing the treasury to do it.
Well no wonder the water ended up green!
Are the writers even fucking trying anymore? Lazy writing.
Vandals! Stealing the algae and water! Arrest them! 100 years in prison!
Don't worry the algae will return because they've learnt nothing.
1,000 years dungeon!
If I were on that crew, I'd be afraid I would be next on the list to be thrown under the bus. It wouldn't take much for one of them to be arrested as an Antifa terrorist saboteur when it inevitably goes to shit again.
Trump came to Drain the Swamp and end wars. He's going to keep on doing it!
And no president has done those things so many times. He should get the nobel peace prize for how many times he's ended the war in Iran.
and, he had to create a literal swamp in washington so he could get to work on draining it.
Can we please get hundreds of people down there to continuously shout "HUUUURRRRRR DUUUURRRRRRRR" until the project is finished?
Get hauled away for "domestic tewowism" because it hurt admin feelings. Lol
Do you now get arrested for NOT touching the water?
Cam I just address the elephant in the room here which has been sitting in the corner of my mind since this whole shitshow started: American flag blue.
Obviously, everyone knows there's only one pool lining color: blue.
Trump, thinking he's the worlds most epic salesman decided to tell everyone that he's picked the color and that he's chosen "American flag blue".
I can't decide whether it's cringey that he thinks anyone would be fooled by that, or if it's cringey because a significant portion of the public really is that stupid.
In a chlorinated pool the bottom is often white, and yet it looks blue when filled. The Reflecting Pool isn't chlorinated, it has a constant flow coming from and draining to the Tidewater basin (I think) but flag-blue paint is stupid because it gets warm for the algae.
I don't think it does have a constant flow. If it did probably wouldn't have the algae problem. Previously they were complaining about the huge cost of keeping it full because it leaks.
Also, it should be a light aquamarine for best effect. Since it reflects the light, it makes the water seem to glow and gives it the reflective quality.
A darker blue just absorbs that light and makes it look like a pond. Also, as you say, this warms the water and fosters algae growth.
As a pool owner, how hard can it be to chlorinate it properly instead of draining? Also does that thing not have a filter?
It's probably not recirculated water, just continual replenishment.
That, and the whole exercise is to funnel money to some cronies.
That cash cow has plenty of milk. Do a bad job and get paid to do the bad job bad???
Where do I sign up?
Consulting
Do I tell them how to do it wrong or tell them how to do it bad?
I don't see myself in that position. I like to sleep at night.
Easy. Tell them how to do it expensively. You still get paid and they don't implement your recommendation.
This isn't your back yard pool, this is a huge body of water that attracts lots of wildlife and having heavy chlorine isn't exact great for said wildlife. Dead animals in and around this massive reflecting pool isn't exactly what you'd want.
I might be mistaken, but I don't think the reflecting pool is chlorinated. It pulls in and dumps out water to the local natural waterways. They're supposed to be using something else (UVC?) to control tiny organisms like algae.
Actually doesn't it just leak, and they need to replenish the lost water?
I thought that's what they were trying to fix with the American flag blue (hah!) lining.
As others have pointed out it is not. The other part that makes this even worse is the paint used heats the water even more than before which expedites the algea growth. The water level is low which doesnt help either, but thats always been a known problem. It's just funny that if you were going to fix the pool you would think the money invested would have also been used to fix the original problems, but nope not even an attempt and here we are, tens of millions spent on absolutely nothing.
I think the water isn’t circulated because the water movement requires to keep the chlorine distributed disturbs it enough that there’s no “reflecting” effect.
As a solemn body of water, the idea is beautiful. As a practical application, it’s a fucking stupid idea.
Can't it be done only on specific hours of the day?
Ah that’s what he ment by draining the swamp
They have drained it at least twice, but he is still potus.
So they knew, someone or many knew, what the problem was at the start. Most of the world didn't know there was a problem. People who looked at the budget were probably just like hehehe cut that shit, fuck it up, then we contract out the repairs that don't address the problems, that we knew of
...A bunch of somewhat richer incompetent idiots.
Probably alao why trump wants to re-fence the wh. Another 14m contract for his buddy no doubt.
they gotta keep his fuckheaded motorcade from driving through it again too
What comes next after Swamp Green? Maybe they'll do Diaper Brown?
It could turn as red as the Nile and the implication would be lost on them.
Followed by frogs, gnats, flies, livestock(screw worm's here), boils, hail, locust, 3 days of darkness, and death of the first born.
God's own hand and voice could decree their deeds to be upon their own shoulders and they would deny it still.
They've already used Diaper Brown for this fountain: https://www.reutersconnect.com/item/restored-cascading-fountain-in-meridian-hill-park-is-seen-with-brown-water-in-washington-dc/dGFnOnJldXRlcnMuY29tLDIwMjY6bmV3c21sX1JDMlA5TUEzRU1BQQ
Jail.