Contractors working on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovation told the Trump administration that its own mistakes — not vandalism — damaged the pool’s liner, new documents reveal.
Atlantic Industrial Coatings detailed the cause of the pool’s eventual swampy appearance in Aug. 14 reports to the government, The New York Times first reported on Friday. Workers had mistakenly layered two incompatible chemicals that caused paint on the pool liner to blister and peel, and some areas were not covered with enough primer to keep the paint job intact, the report said.
The documents reviewed by the Times, which also included daily progress updates from the National Park Service, show that the government had knowledge that human error caused at least some damage, even as they pursued criminal vandalism charges at President Donald Trump’s request. While the report shows that Atlantic blamed vandals for cuts in the pool’s edge caulking, the company did not link those incidents to the liner peeling.
The Justice Department abruptly dropped a criminal case against former U.S. Olympian David Hearn earlier this year after he was accused of purposefully vandalizing the pool. In its filing, prosecutors admitted that the damage had stemmed from “flawed installation by the contractor.” This came after administration officials, including Trump and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, maintained for months that vandals were responsible for the pool’s damage.
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At an August news conference held days before Atlantic’s full report to the government, Trump acknowledged contractor error, but continued to claim damage from vandalism was “substantial.”
“Unfortunately,” he said on Aug. 10, “there is no video or proof, other than the damage itself.”
The administration has otherwise been quiet on the issue since last month, including after Trump remarked that Pirro had “folded like an umbrella” after she dropped the charges against Hearn. Pirro, Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum had a contentious meeting in which Pirro blamed Burgum for misleading the president about what the evidence suggested.
On Wednesday, Pirro declined to answer a reporter’s question about her office’s now-dropped vandalism case.
“No, no and no!” she said. “Who wants to know about this? How many times do I have to say no? I am not talking about that.”
In a statement to The Washington Sun, an Interior Department spokesperson maintained that sections of the pool were damaged by vandals, and added that the administration is still “cleaning up Obama’s and Biden’s mess.”
“Like any major construction project — and in this case, the world’s largest reflecting pool which was worked on in record time for the 250th celebrations — there are always parts of a project where a contractor returns to make sure the work is perfect,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.
The Parks Service brought back Atlantic, which won a no-bid contract to carry out the initial repairs, to complete additional repairs. The reflecting pool will soon be opened with new “American Flag blue” paint, repaired plumbing, shiny granite coping stones and a brand new water treatment system, the spokesperson said.
“[Atlantic] is contractually obligated to fix the Reflecting Pool,” the spokesperson said. “As good stewards of taxpayer money, unlike Obama, it would be wasteful to bring in a new company to finish the job.”
The White House did not address the contractor’s report when approached by The Washington Sun.
“For years, the Reflecting Pool sat neglected, plagued with algae, and leaking millions of gallons of water. Fixing it was common sense. It’s another example of President Trump restoring our nation’s capital for the American people,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in an email.
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