Trump s reflecting pool fix may have accidentally

Trump's reflecting pool fix may have accidentally fueled the very problem it was meant to solve
Story by Jillian Wilson
Jun 16, 2026


“Puke green” and “split pea soup” are just two of the phrases being used to describe President Donald Trump’s algae-filled, green Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, as well as some catchy phrases like “Make Algae Great Again” and “Make Algae Green Again.”

Trump spent $14 million on upgrades to the famous landmark in Washington, D.C., in an effort to make the pool “function properly” and be full of sparkling, blue water in large part thanks to a brand-new paint job. The pool was drained and painted a color Trump is calling “American flag blue.”

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Experts had fears about the outcome of this project from the beginning. The New York Times reported there were no plans to fix infrastructure problems with the pipes — and a paint job itself won’t fix the longstanding algae problem.

This is now fully evident. There is algae throughout the reflecting pool, and workers are doing all they can to get it under control, particularly ahead of the 250th anniversary celebrations planned in Washington, D.C., around the Fourth of July.

“Treatment of algae blooms is very costly and time-consuming, so we will have to see what happens before July 4,” said Sarah Goodrich, an adjunct professor in the geography department at the University of Cincinnati.

Multiple factors make the reflecting pool an ideal environment for algae growth.

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“Algae blooms can occur when there are hot temperatures paired with stagnant water, in addition to high nutrient inputs such as nitrogen and phosphorus,” Goodrich said.

This is also just natural plant matter growth that happens in any stagnant water, said Steve Goodale, the owner of Swimming Pool Steve pool service, whether it’s a reflecting pool like this or a full-blown swamp.

“Swamps, and you know very well what they look like — green and full of growth and algae,” Goodale said.

It’s also a huge pool that contains roughly 6.5 million gallons of water. Keeping algae under control in something of this size is a challenge, he added.

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“So there’s a ‘perfect storm’ of potential drivers here that could have caused the green explosion,” added Goodrich, “Especially when D.C. can get so hot.”

Painting the reflecting pool a darker color, which Trump calls ‘American flag blue,’ likely made the algae situation worse.
As mentioned, Trump had the reflecting pool painted a darker color to resemble what he calls “American flag blue” in hopes of creating a swimming-pool-like vibe at the memorial. This isn’t helping the algae situation.

“It’s a massive surface area of a relatively shallow body of water, which was just changed to a darker color than it was previously ... if you take a body of water and you change it from a light color to a dark color, it will absorb more heat,” said Goodale.

This makes the water warmer, and “warmer water directly equals more algae growth,” he noted.

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“They’re kind of fighting an uphill battle here. It’s not to say it won’t work, it’s just a harder process than it might appear,” Goodale said.

“Any algae that was present in the water upon re-filling the pool may have been able to grow exponentially due to the weather conditions, increased sunlight and potential of nutrient compounds in the paint used for the pool,” said Goodrich.

According to Goodrich, certain paints contain different forms of both nitrogen and phosphorus, which are nutrients for algae. It’s unclear whether the paint in the pool contains these elements, but if it does, it could exacerbate the algae issue.

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Workers are seen here on June 14 trying to clean up the algae in the pool. Tasos Katopodis via Getty Images
Workers are seen here on June 14 trying to clean up the algae in the pool. Tasos Katopodis via Getty Images
© Tasos Katopodis via Getty Images
Some Trump fans are saying this is the work of people trying to ‘sabotage’ Trump. This is not likely or even possible.
Certain right-wing media outlets and Trump supporters are imagining scenarios where people throw algae into the pool, calling the algae bloom “sabotage” by Democrats who want to see Trump fail. This idea is not at all likely, or even possible.

No one would need to sabotage the pool, said Goodale: “Algae is readily making its way into the pool already because of its open-air environment.”

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“Nobody needs to add algae to my pool, I can still end up with algae in my pool,” he said.

“This is just a water chemistry situation, and I genuinely believe if you were to dump a wheelbarrow full of algae into it, it wouldn’t make any difference,” Goodale said. “That algae is going to grow or it’s going to not grow, depending on the chemical condition of the water.”

Katie Martin, a spokesperson for the Interior Department, called this algae “residual algae” from dormant pipes.

“I wouldn’t know that that’s caused it,” Goodale said in response to the “residual algae” idea — “certainly, it would contribute if the lines were filled with algae and nobody cleaned those out.”

“During the process, as a contractor, that’s something that I would be aware of,” he said. “If I take your pool offline for a month in the middle of summer, I can bet that any water remaining within the pipes is going to be super disgusting and then you would evacuate that water if that was the concern.”

“So, maybe it is a contributing factor, but I think that water was very likely to turn green, regardless of whether pipes were containing algae-filled water or not,” said Goodale.

Workers poured hydrogen peroxide into the reflecting pool to combat the algae, but experts aren’t sure it’ll work.
“I do understand that they’ve installed a system recently, they call it a nanobubbler system, which is an ozone injection system, which the logic is sound, this would definitely help to combat algae,” Goodale said.

The nanobubbler is an oxygen-based system that doesn’t harm the environment and helps create clean, healthy water with no algae, he said.

“The same way you would have a waterfall spilling into water, and aerating the water introduces oxygen, and that’s just the way that Mother Nature keeps water clean. So we’re just creating a mechanical version of that with an ozone system,” Goodale said.

But you are fighting against a water source that is open to environmental contamination from pollen, duck poop and more, he said.

In an effort to seemingly control the algae, workers were seen dumping hydrogen peroxide into the reflecting pool this morning, but Goodale said it likely isn’t enough to actually control the problem.

Hydrogen peroxide is an attempt to do the same thing the nanobubbler does, said Goodale.

“They’re just trying to manually induce more of this, and I think that they’re hoping that if they can get the algae under control, the nanobubblers can keep it at bay,” he said.

Hans W. Paerl, a research professor of marine and environmental sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, added that the hydrogen peroxide “may work, but it’s really only a temporary fix, because the hydrogen peroxide is active for only a few weeks or so.”

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“So, there’s a good chance the algal bloom might return,” Paerl noted.

“Hydrogen peroxide dissipates pretty quickly. It actually turns into water ... and, so, when it’s used you’ve got to usually use multiple applications, and of course if you’ve got a budget that doesn’t matter, that’s OK, but it’s going to be very expensive,” said Paerl.

Hydrogen peroxide isn’t great for animals if they drink the water, but isn’t as bad as something like chlorine, Paerl said. Again, hydrogen peroxide eventually turns into water. But the workers were using a very high percentage — 12% — of the chemical, which could cause burns.

It’s unclear exactly how much hydrogen peroxide is being poured into the pool, but you need a lot to make any difference in a 6.5 million gallons of water, Goodale noted.

A “tanker truck would be an appropriate size vessel” for the hydrogen peroxide to make any real difference in the pool, Goodale said.

Climate change is only going to make algae a bigger problem in this pool and beyond.
“The real basic problem is algae like it hot ... so to speak, and this is probably the worst time if you’re hoping to keep clear water in a place like the Reflecting [Pool], because it’s hot,” said Paerl.

This is the hottest time of year in D.C.

“It’s usually a decrease in the temperature that will dissipate the blooms, and of course, given climate change ... these kinds of issues and problems are only going to get worse,” added Paerl.

For example, algae blooms weren’t really a problem in Nordic countries and more northern latitudes, but over the last several decades as climate change becomes more severe, blooms are popping up in the northern Canadian lakes and Nordic countries, he said.

In these places, “temperatures are increasing, and they’re making it more amenable for these blooms to grow, develop, and persist,” noted Paerl.

It’s also warmer for longer each year — meaning, they get high in early spring and stay high well into the fall — which gives these blooms more of an opportunity to bloom earlier in the year and stay in bloom longer, he added.

“The window of opportunity for these blooms is expanding because of climate warming,” said Paerl.

In other words, we may be seeing more algae-removal efforts in the weeks and months (and years) to come.

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