How hard could it be? Sure, this was a decades-old problem, the solution to which had eluded successive past presidents, and all the so-called experts were explaining why it couldn’t be done, or at least not without a much greater cost. But as with the vow to deliver peace in Ukraine, the decision to launch a trade war against China and then an actual war against Iran, Donald Trump believed he knew better. He alone could prove the Washington DC establishment wrong: by defeating the city’s algae.
On 23 April, during an event that was nominally about the cost of healthcare, the US president announced his plans to transform the century-old reflecting pool in the heart of the capital into a “beautiful, beautiful” spectacle, just in time for the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations in July. Built in 1922, the 2,030ft-long pool was designed to serve as a link between the monuments to two of the country’s greatest presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Viewed from the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument was perfectly reflected in the shallow waters, and vice versa. The view formed the backdrop to Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963 and the mass rallies against the Vietnam War later that decade.
Alas, the famously tranquil water also proved to be the perfect breeding ground for the algae that flourished in the capital’s hot, humid summers, regularly rendering the pool a murky shade of green. The pipes leaked. As did the concrete base, which was built on reclaimed mudflats – there is a reason, beyond its politics, that Washington is known as “the Swamp”. The Obama administration spent more than $34m on a project to renovate the pool that largely failed. The Biden administration never settled on a strategy. So, after Trump returned to office last year and was alerted to its “filthy, disgusting” state by a visiting friend, the president decided, as with so many of his decisions, to disregard the counsel of the various experts and implement his own brilliant plan.
The key, Trump explained, was to think of the project as a very large swimming pool and, well, he knew swimming pools. As a property developer, he estimated he had “probably built more than 100 swimming pools” and so he called up an “unbelievable” guy he said had worked on a pool for one of his golf clubs 20 years ago and asked him to take a look. Instead of the Biden-era estimates of hundreds of millions of dollars for a project that would take years to complete, Trump’s guy thought they could get the job done in weeks, for around $1.5m. They would drain the pool, re-seal the leaking joints and then paint the bottom with an “industrial-grade” coating. Job done. Mission accomplished. The only quibble was over what colour it should be. Trump initially wanted turquoise “like in the Bahamas” but the contractor convinced him to go with “American-flag blue”.
The initial results looked promising. For a few glorious days earlier this month the reflecting pool was a brilliant, shimmering shade of blue. Trump declared himself “very good at building things and constructing things”, glossing over the fact that the cost had soared to $14.7m, with a no-bid contract awarded to a single firm, bypassing the usual procurement process. (The White House claimed the project was too urgent to seek other bids.) Another $1.7m contract was awarded to an Ohio-based firm, reportedly linked to a Trump donor, for a water purification system designed to vanquish the algae. A White House spokesperson boasted that the project was moving at “Trump speed”.
Yet all too soon, nature reasserted itself. Thick blooms of green algae colonised the water once again. Marine scientists marvelled at the speed of its growth, positing that the decision to paint the lining dark blue had exacerbated the problem by absorbing more heat and making the water even more hospitable to algae. National Park Service employees in waders and wide-brimmed sunhats were deployed with hoover-like devices to try to suck up the algae. Other workers poured hydrogen peroxide into the water to try to kill off Trump’s green nemesis. Samples suggested they were making progress in beating back one strain of algae, only to create the conditions for another strain to prosper. Then, the American-flag blue coating started peeling off. Like the waves that lapped Canute’s feet, the reflecting pool seemed determined to demonstrate the limits of Trump’s earthly powers.
Unlike Canute, however, who was simply making a point to his sycophantic courtiers, Trump continues to insist the laws of nature, economics and political gravity do not apply to him. Instead of conceding defeat in his battle with the capital’s algae, or at least that the task was more complicated than it first appeared, Trump found someone else to blame. “Radical left lunatics” had vandalised the pool, he claimed, without offering evidence. He said multiple people had already been arrested and they were now facing “years in jail!”. A former Olympic canoeist was led away in handcuffs on 19 June after allegedly touching a shard of the pool lining that had come loose. (He denies causing any damage.)
The reflecting pool would have to be drained again, Trump acknowledged, but after that, he was sure it would finally be fixed. Just like his many other calamitous ventures and ill-fated efforts to remake the world on his preferred terms, he seemed confident that success was just a matter of time and faith in his own abilities. Victory, at last, would be his.
[Further reading: Trump’s glittering climbdown in Versailles]
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