Paint peels from Trump-renovated Reflecting Pool after reopening in D.C.

Blue material peeled from the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., and sank into algae-tinted water less than two weeks after Donald Trump announced the job was done. Workers had begun pouring hydrogen peroxide into the pool by Tuesday to fight an algae bloom that turned the water green instead of the dark blue Trump had promised.

Trump reopened the pool on June 6, saying the work had taken about a week and would cost roughly $1.5 million. The project was later described as a $14.7 million no-bid contract, a mismatch that sharpened scrutiny of a renovation already branded with Trump’s “American flag blue” rhetoric.

The controversy was already in court before the peeling started. On May 11, The Cultural Landscape Foundation sued to block the resurfacing, arguing that the administration had bypassed required preservation procedures under the National Historic Preservation Act. The National Park Service, which operates the National Mall, and Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the Virginia-based contractor that performed the work, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Reflecting Pool is one of the Mall’s most visible and symbolically loaded spaces, a setting tied to the 1963 March on Washington and to the civil-rights history that unfolded there. Built in the 1920s, it underwent a comprehensive renovation in 2012 with $34 million in Obama-era stimulus funds after years of structural problems, and it has long required periodic draining and cleanup for algae, garbage, bird droppings and dirt.

Visitors were blunt about the result. One said, “I want my money back after seeing this.” The peeling paint, or sealant, now raises a larger question than whether the blue finish held: whether a rushed, high-profile makeover at a national landmark was ever matched by the oversight such a place demands.