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USAfter D.C.'s Reflecting Pool gets repainted, visitors ask: What changed? - NPR shows it's TDS by refusing to see the difference between filth and beauty
Workers refill the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Friday, after a weeks-long project to resurface and repaint the basin.
Rahmat Gul/AP
WASHINGTON — Water is flowing back into the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, after a controversial painting job kept it closed for weeks. And to many onlookers, it doesn't look much different.
"The pool gets completed at 4 o'clock and the water will start to flow in … and it's going to be beautiful," President Trump told reporters in the Oval office on Wednesday.
The next day, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum shared a video of water bubbling up through a grate on the freshly-darkened pool floor. Trump had the pool's surface darkened to a shade he calls "American flag blue." For the last century, he's said, the pool was "just gray … the color of concrete and stone."
By Friday morning, the 2,028 foot-long shallow pool had collected a stripe of water down the middle, just wide enough to reflect the Washington Monument across from it. The refilling continued under the bright sun, as one worker stood in the middle of the pool, with his pants rolled up above his knees, wielding a hose.
As the temperature neared 90 degrees, tourists, cyclists and joggers paused at the top of the nearby steps to snap photos and observe the process. Many welcomed the return of the water — and the ducks that play in it — but said they couldn't immediately tell a difference in the color.
"The more water it fills, the more similar it looks [to before]," said Luisa Córdoba, a D.C. resident and avid runner who says she's been coming to check on the pool every day since work started. "I'm just happy it's not that bright blue that we saw the first days, which was so alarming … if it stays like this, it's fine."
Early renderings — as well as preliminary coats of paint when the project started in late April — had critics worried the historic landmark would end up looking more like a swimming pool. But Friday's observers didn't find that to be the case.
"I'm colorblind, so it doesn't look blue — yet," said Terry Barzanti, a Maryland resident who works nearby.
"I'm not colorblind and it doesn't look blue," laughed his coworker Edgar Sadsad, who found it more grey.
Other passersby described it as closer to black, and said the difference might be more noticeable once the pool is fully refilled. Even so, Sadsad and Barzanti were among those who praised the project, saying the pool already looked cleaner and more appealing.
Trump has for months complained about the state of the pool, saying he made it a priority after an unnamed friend visiting from Germany called it "filthy" and "not representative of the country," according to the president.
The pool, which first opened in 1923, last underwent major renovations between 2010 and 2012. But it has continued to suffer from broken pipes and water leaks that merit costly refills, according to the Department of the Interior.
Trump has said this project sealed crevices in the stone to prevent leaks, and removed 12 truckloads of garbage from the pool, though it's not clear that it addressed the broken pipes.
"It'll last for 50 to 100 years before you have to do anything with it," he said.
The reflecting pool, at the base of the Lincoln Memorial, previously reflected blue in certain conditions such as this day in November 2025.
Andrew Leyden/Getty Images
Questions remain about the project's funding
The resurfacing took significantly longer than Trump's initial estimate.
He said in late April that the project would be done in a week or two, though the Department of the Interior told NPR it would take closer to a month.
In mid-May, the nonprofit Cultural Landscape Foundation sued the administration to stop work on the pool, saying it had bypassed federally required historic preservation reviews. A judge heard arguments later that month, but hadn't made a decision by the time the administration informed the court on Wednesday that work had been completed.
The project also appears to cost more than Trump said it would.
He gave the price tag as $2 million, which he said, without specifics, was significantly less than he had been quoted previously. But Interior Department records obtained by The New York Times show the administration plans to pay $13.1 million to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the Virginia firm that Trump picked for the project.
"It's kind of sad where our tax dollars are going. I mean, it was fine before, by my knowledge," said Samantha Sorokin of Arlington, Va., who was taking her parents on a tour.
It's not clear how much of the money is coming from taxpayers. A large sign affixed to the construction site fence, on National Park Service letterhead, informed visitors that "these improvements are being completed using your fee dollars."
(TheWashington Post reported this week that the Trump administration is diverting at least $90 million from national park entry fees to fund its July 4th fireworks display and other D.C. beautification projects.)
When asked for comment about the cost and where the money is coming from, the Department of the Interior — the park service's parent agency — told NPR that it has "many funding sources available to spend on deferred maintenance."
"Unlike Barack Obama who spent millions upon millions in taxpayer-funded Great Recession recovery aid that should have gone to struggling families, the Trump administration is looking at different funding mechanisms which include endowment funds and revenue brought in from the sale of park passes," the unnamed spokesperson wrote over email.
The two-year renovation of the reflecting pool that ended in 2012 was funded by $34 million from an Obama-era economic stimulus package.
A sign outside the reflecting pool informs visitors that their national park fees helped fund the project.
Rachel Treisman/NPR
Trump's campaign to spruce up D.C.
Trump is hoping to make many changes to D.C., ranging from massive undertakings like his proposed triumphal arch (which got preliminary approval from a second federal agency this week) to smaller changes like installing new statues and restoring park fountains.
"We have many monuments and fountains all over Washington, and we're just about completed with all of them," he said Wednesday.
The Interior Department referred NPR to a White House post on X listing those accomplishments, which include "500 instances of graffiti removed," "134 rat-resistant trash cans installed" and "250 truckloads of debris from ponds removed."
Much of that work is being carried out by National Guard troops deployed to D.C., whose numbers are set to double ahead of the country's 250th birthday celebrations on and around July 4th. That's also the deadline — or at least impetus — for many of Trump's renovation projects.
Maria Sorokin, who was visiting her daughter from Pennsylvania, is skeptical that the 250th anniversary warrants major changes like the reflecting pool resurfacing.
"It is a special anniversary and it should be spruced up, but I'm not sure if this was necessary," she said, looking at the pool slowly refilling. "If it's not broken, don't fix it."
But some area residents, like Barzanti, embrace the cleanup and beautification efforts.
"We walk down here for lunch breaks," he said. "People come from all over the world to see our nation's capital. So we should show it off, we should take care of it."
Some changes are going over better than others.
Several locals at the reflecting pool, including Córdoba, mentioned that they were thrilled to see the fountains at Meridian Hill Park — a popular spot about 1.5 miles north of the White House — flowing with water for the first time in seven years.
Maryellen Thornton, who lives near the park, says the fountain restoration has been "amazing for the community," describing the picnic blanket-packed grass "like nirvana." It's also one of the reasons she and her husband Brad Thornton came to see the reflecting pool.
"We're just fascinated with how fabulous it is to have all of these water features being restored in the district," she said. "It just brings so much happiness to everybody."
Brad is also excited to see the return of water to the fountain outside Union Station, Washington's major transport hub, and hopes the newly filled reflecting pool will build on that momentum.
"A little bit of spraying water goes a long way," he said. "It shouldn't be about politics. It's just about enjoying it. We're in the city. We need some green space."
Its not enough to value rights. That is a statement of political philosophy. Its not enough to claim a possession to the land. The American people do not claim the constitution as their creator. The constitution is our instrument. The American people created IT. IT did not create us. We, as Americans, are independent of the Constitution, and all the rights that it gives. All the philosophies it espouses. If the constitution is torn to pieces and all the religions of this land broken, the American people will remain. For we are a people that are beyond belief, doctrines, and paper.
Our enemies ignore this fact at their peril.
So, rejoice. The current manifestation of this clash is the American people fixing their capital city up and turning water fountains on, that have been silent for three decades. You do not want to live in an America where the American people decide its time to kill to get what they want. For when or if that time comes, we will absolutely do so. North America is the land of our first breath. It is wonderous, and it is cruel. And the American people are as wonderous and cruel as the land that birthed us.
We genocided the natives. We burned Asia and Europe. In fire and nuclear fury. With one hand, and in the other we raised up.
Forget who we are at your peril. We are the children of the new world. The great expanse, the icy north and the hellish desert waste. We are a people that will not be collared. The very attempt to do so will kill those attempting, and kill all those who aid them. And their wives, and their children, and all of them unto the seventh generation. If we want to get biblical.
Trump has said this project sealed crevices in the stone to prevent leaks, and removed 12 truckloads of garbage from the pool, though it's not clear that it addressed the broken pipes.
>Raise money to build the big gaudy ballroom so tax dollars aren't needed to build it
>Get sued because Orange Man Bad
>Perform renovations on a national monument
>Get sued because Orange Man Bad
If I got superpowers tomorrow I would immediately begin twisting the heads off every petty retarded nigger that does this, and then the heads of Benjamin Netanyahu and Modi once people started getting the message.
The algae problem seems to have started decades ago when they switched from using treated potable water from the DC system to using untreated water from the Potomac.
It has never been a massive issue but is a reoccurring one since stagnate water will naturally try and form microorganisms like algae. They had a bacterial outbreak a decade ago that killed all the ducks, for example.
A modern system would cycle and filter the water, adding chemicals as necessary. This pools seems to have been built before such considerations and would be expensive to retrofit or the system is inadequate/broken. I'm not sure as even the wiki is vague on the technical details.
This is probably why you don't see reflecting pools that often verse the water features you do see often; fountains. Think about it; Disney has fountains that all circulate and filter the water, Vegas has fountains, even ancient cities went with fountains because its easier to keep clean that stagnate water.
Painting the pool a darker color only adds to the challenges since it absorbs more heat which algae likes. To be fair though this is an issue that has been an ongoing on for decades and is more a problem of the design of the pool (which was built back in the 1920's) than it is any political angle.
It could also be because filthy jeets are blessing the water by dumping tons of ceremonial garbage and idols into it. Who knows?
Since this got bumped:
not reading the article, because it failed to deliver one thing it was supposed to deliver: a before and after comparison. Behead journos.
It's just an aesthetics issue. Algae grows wherever you have water with nutrients in it and light. Unfortunately the best way to combat it would involve turning the reflecting pool into a natural pond, which sorta goes against the purpose of it.
Since this got bumped:
not reading the article, because it failed to deliver one thing it was supposed to deliver: a before and after comparison. Behead journos.
I'm not going to dig for the photo but from what I've seen it looked damn near the same with the blue paint. The reflecting pool tends to reflect the color of the sky so the bottom is rarely seen when you aren't up close to it. Thats why big bodies of water tend to look blue during the day and black at night; its reflecting the light from the sky.
It's just an aesthetics issue. Algae grows wherever you have water with nutrients in it and light. Unfortunately the best way to combat it would involve turning the reflecting pool into a natural pond, which sorta goes against the purpose of it.
There’s a new twist in the ongoing saga to clean up the Reflecting Pool. Some of the new “American Flag Blue” paint used to coat the bottom appears to be peeling away.
Please let this retard fuck fix this before the 4th, if I have to listen to niggers on Reddit blubber on about the reflecting pool being botched for the next ten years I’m going to Fedpost. You can’t win much Donboy but I need you to win on this very simple and easy thing. Can he do that for us?
I'm not going to dig for the photo but from what I've seen it looked damn near the same with the blue paint. The reflecting pool tends to reflect the color of the sky so the bottom is rarely seen when you aren't up close to it. Thats why big bodies of water tend to look blue during the day and black at night; its reflecting the light from the sky.
Or digging it up and rebuilding it with a much more robust filtration system which would cost $300+ million.
Water looks blue because it is blue. If you are looking at it from an angle, yes it can be mainly reflections. If you are looking at it head on you will see the color as is from light illuminating it from the bottom. This is why deep bodies of water appear navy blue in satellite photos. Most of the light is absorbed before it reaches your eyes.
Water looks blue because it is blue. If you are looking at it from an angle, yes it can be mainly reflections. If you are looking at it head on you will see the color as is from light illuminating it from the bottom. This is why deep bodies of water appear navy blue in satellite photos. Most of the light is absorbed before it reaches your eyes.
Why Is the Sky Blue?
The sky is blue because Earth's atmosphere scatters short-wavelength blue light from the Sun in all directions more than other colors, a process known as Rayleigh scattering.
Why are sunsets red?
When the sun is low on the horizon, its light must travel through much more of the atmosphere to reach your eyes. During this longer journey, almost all the blue light is scattered away, allowing the longer, unscattered red and yellow wavelengths to pass directly to your eyes.
What color is water?
Pure water has a very slight cyan-blue tint. This happens because water molecules naturally absorb the red end of the visible light spectrum, reflecting the blue wavelengths back to our eyes. This is not why bodies of water look blue.
Why are large bodies of water blue?
Large bodies of water (like oceans or lakes) look blue because they act as mirrors, reflecting the color of the sky.
So bodies of water are blue because they reflect the sky. Water is slightly cyan colored by default but it's not the shade or intensity of blue you see when you look at a lake or the ocean.
