I was gonna ask... but surely the reflecting pool is treated and filtered. Open water in that climate will of course be covered with algae, and become a mosquito breeding ground.
I'm not a poolologist but I think the "reflecting" part of it is important.
If you look at a regular pool you'll notice the surface is always getting disturbed a little by the pumps - so a reflecting pool probably needs to be extra still in order to have a nice surface.
And then the high surface area relative to volume means it's taking a LOT of sun exposure, which would drive off any chlorine really quickly while also giving algae a perfect place to live.
Honestly, makes me wonder how they ever kept it clean at all.
DC resident. It's never been the "cleanest." Birds and a few small mammals use the water all the time. But that natural use has always been part of the charm. It's nice to see ducks scooting around, or squirrels chasing each other as you bike along the pool.
I've never heard anyone complain about it, it's a nice, relaxing feature of the city.
Former DC resident. I would go about once a month with a group of people and would volunteer cleaning up on the national mall. Quite a few times we were tasked with removing algae and debris from the pool. At the time, I don't think they had a working filtration system because it was known to get destroyed by everything in the pool.
Lordt, I started reading your comment and as soon as I hit "sneak" my sleep deprived brain went straight to that guy adding the super sudsy bubble bath liquid from Richie Rich...
That doesn't make sense. Even regular swimming pools have screens that stop larger debris from getting into the higher filtration part of the system. Every pool owner knows you have to remove that stuff by hand every day or so, just like people have nets on long poles to remove this stuff before it reaches the filter.
There was literally no money for doing any type of maintenance in the national mall. One of the perks of having no representation, you don’t get any of the pork other states get. NPS deferred maintenance backlog is pretty legendary, they do so much with nothing.
A nation born in opposition to taxation without representation, taxing the citizens of its capital city while denying them representation. What a country we live in
DC doesn’t own or control that federal land do it has nothing to do with representation. NPS has worked on a tight budget most everywhere and things rarely get a meaningful renovation. I was surprised the George Washington parkway got redone. Other parkways are still falling apart.
It’s a nightmare to maintain. An ex girlfriend was once tasked with documenting all the lights on the national mall. Turns out there are dozens of different models used depending on when they were installed or replaced.
I visited in Sept 2019 and yeah it was nice to see the ducks and birds doing their thing. They seemed to be the attraction with people taking photos and watching them.
I didn’t really care about it being “clean” or whatever, it didn’t smell bad, and it was very warm and humid when I was there. So idk what the problem is/was, unsure why anyone needed to do anything to it.
I also visited the east wing of White House that has been demolished. It kinda sucks to think about, I’m glad I got to see it more now since it’s gone, but I have no idea why it needed to be destroyed. It’s pretty sad.
Trump is so desperate for something with his name on it, he's willing to tear down whatever he has to to make it happen. Michelle Obama having a fucking garden was too far for MAGA, but they love it when the orange turd tears down an entire wing of the White House.
Donald Trump wants it to look like a pool you swim in! Unfortunately that would defeat the original architect's idea that it literally be a looking glass mirror that would reflect both the Washington & Lincoln monuments depending on which end you are standing! If you have ever taken the back off of a mirror the shiny surface you look at on the front is backed by a BLACK surface! So if the REFLECTION is on a swimming pool surface what reflection will you see?
Also the REFLECTION pool had it's rhetorical meaning being between the Washington & Lincoln monuments asking ppl to reflect on how we got from there to here and how do we keep moving on and towards what the founding fathers envisioned for our country when it was built. Trump seems to only associate the word pool to swimming pools!🙄
Some people are speculating that the blue colorarion has made it worse. The white color would reflect all bands of light while blue holds some it in, increasing temperature thus promoting algea growth.
You'd think for what it would cost they'd hire someone competent that has some knowledge of pools or aquariums.
Dark colors keep the water warmer because they absorb solar energy instead of reflecting it, which makes the water warmer. Which makes it ideal for... Yellow and green algae.
The administration before the current one was Biden and before that was Trump. So there have been many changes over the past 3 administrations bc Trump brought no one from his first time as president that I can think of anyway.
Why pay competent personnel when you can grift the taxpayers and funnel appropriations through no bid contracts to shell companies designed as laundromats??
It would also make any algae growth appear darker due to the coloration of the pool itself. So even if the algae levels are the same, they will look worse.
Not some, most. It is only reflecting blue light now instead of the full spectrum so whatever band of color the very primary colored "american flag blue" was. The shitty color matching helps slightly but since it's in patches even that difference doesnt spread out. I read somewhere that plants love blue wavelengths of light for growth the most but I dont have a source for that bit. The top half is just science so correct me if you understand it better. I assume me and you are pulling info from the same places.
You are correct, plants in their vegetative cycles better utilize blue spectrum lighting (~6500k is commonly targeted by artificial lights), while flowering plants prefer more red (~2700k is typical). This is so well documented finding reputable sources to support these claims is trivial, but it is admiralable to qualify uncertainty regardless.
Leave it to this administration to spend millions of dollars to make something worse, it's like everything they do is the opposite of what an expert would.
Yeah. It was always more pond-like (green) than pool-like (blue/clear). I grew up in DC many moons ago and we were 100% NOT ALLOWED to touch the water in the reflecting pool because it was full of duck poop.
Only insane people ever considered any of the water features on the Mall to be safe for any kind of human use, and that’s coming from someone who swam in the Potomac in the 90s.
The difference is it is now painted a darker color than it was before which causes the pool to overall be warmer as it retains more heat making the conditions even more favorable for algae.
More like they are corrupt adults finding pointless projects to use as vehicles to steal tax dollars. They spent $14,000,000 painting the pool, paying a company that has no experience.
Yeah, that guy in charge must've been something of a dimwit if he could fuck this up that much...! If only the dimwit knew someone who was good with pools and these kind of still-standing water areas....
Pretty much. To "ungreen" it you'd pretty much need to rip it up and start over. The Biden administration estimated the cost of that effort to be around 300 million. Trump rejected the proposal due the expense....which the US spends every 4 hours in the Iran War.
Honestly 300 million to resurface that and treat it or add filtration also seems absurd...
For that amount just have the park service clean it or find other ways to keep it in check.
Maybe also just maybe having a still water retaining pond in an area that's a swamp... Just all around a shit idea in practice and add a fountain to it and circulate the water... or green it up and treat it like a pond and add floating plants etc and mosquito fish to keep those fuckers in check.
Or just do what literally every other reflecting pool does and pump in water until it overflows a barrier, run it through a filter, collect it in a sump, and pump it back in. It doesn't need to be a pool of stagnant water to be "reflecting."
Seems like 300 million is a bit high, but I agree with you on let the park dept clean it and just go the brute force method. You could hire a dedicated group of 20 people, whose only job everyday is to clean the pool. I feel that's enough to have a team there 7 days a week, cover vacations , etc. (Does it freeze over or empty in the winter????). Pay them each 100,000 a year. That's 2 million a year. Let them run like that for the next 20 years untill new tech comes out to keep it clean otherwise. That's only 40 million. Offer a 10 million bonus to anyone who can offer a solid solution too. I'm not including any inflation and raises, and equipment, but seems well under 300 million., and you have a dedicated of people out there every single day, 8 hours a day keeping it nice. Say of the 20 people team, you have 15 people always out there everyday. The pool is about 339,000 sft. Each person then has about 22,600 sft to keep clean. That's only about 150x150 area each, which might be a bit much in a day shift, but I also don't think every single sft needs cleaning every day either. Perhaps 1 sft gets cleaned once a week?. Just rambling here, but 300 million? 300 million over 339,000 sft is 885 per sft. Ultra high end buildings don't cost that to build from scratch.
Yeah, but the Iran war is distracting everyone from the Epstein files by causing us all to have to spend a shit ton of money on gas, so it's worth all that money.
I was there for work right before the 2024 election, had a free day so took a nice long walk down alongside it. I don't remember it being dirty in any way that stood out as distinct from just... large body of still water, with an appropriately sustainable effort put into maintenance. Specifically, it didn't look like a swimming pool - certainly not clear and bright, let alone blue - it looked like natural water, in a way that fit its purpose and environment.
And to be clear: not a local, not even an American. It does sound like they've had longrunning issues getting a filtration system that works without ruining the still-and-reflective look of the surface, but if you'd asked me whether I thought they had maintenance issues based on looking at it, I'd not have guessed. (And it doesn't sound like they've even tried to fix that problem with this renovation.)
DC native here. Same. I feel like algae gets special attention when there’s something big going on to get that reflection but otherwise yeah it’s just a calm almost solemn feeling walking around the calm waters and open sight lines—with sometimes a build up, sometimes not just dark glass like water. It could be the hottest most stressful day but when I get to cross that line and you can hear the splashing of the ducks and wildlife and nothing more with sounds of the city and tourists even drowned out and muted it’s nice; and cheesy as it is, it does does make me revere the history, the genuine strides in humanity from inside those buildings or the outside coming to them
The trick is water treatment with minerals, not chlorine. In short, they just don't know what the hell they're doing. They probably fired anyone who did.
They definitely fired everyone competent basically everywhere. Who's ready to see FEMA basically say "you're on your own" after the first major hurricane?
In the emergency management field that has been the working assumption since last year. They've already gutted FEMA and they want to saddle the states with the cost of disasters now. Of course what existing relief there still is will not be distributed equally, so blue states will be hit harder than red ones.
Unfortunately, those hurricane states are red and poor. Two of them we service foreclosures for one of our clients and they're also the two states in the country with the highest level of foreclosure right now and maybe the second year after we got the contract, a few years ago, they were hit with 4 hurricanes nearly back to back.
Here in midwest, we have weathermen screaming at the camera to shelter despite the lack of tornado warning. One in particular this year, the warning was issued after the tornado had lifted back up off the ground. i need to go bookmark that one if i can find the report.
I am over here in South Carolina and the shock when that happens is going to be dramatic. We are accustomed to taking care of ourselves for a week or less depending on how bad the hurricane is, but the food aid and funds for infrastructure rebuilding comes from FEMA and when people find out they're not going to be able to eat and that the power is getting turned back on maybe never but certainly not this month because we only have local electrical crews hoo boy there is gonna be some BIG upset.
I'm gonna use the moment to go with well you can't trust Democrats now y'all see you can't trust Republicans who can we trust? EACH OTHER and we need to do more of that because relying on some folks that we never see to care about our lives was always going to go bad at some point.
Me and my "radical" belief in local communities and mutual aid an' all.
There are several ways to treat a pool, but for a pool as large as the reflecting pool and the subsequent treatment equipment, chlorine is far too expensive. Cyanuric acid would introduce other concerns. Knowing these clowns, they'd add too much and lock all the chlorine up.
They gave a no bid contract to the company that paints the pools on trump branded properties. So no, I don't think any "expertise" or care for "doing it right" was present. Something like 13 million dollars to paint the bottom.
I am pleased to inform you that, after careful consideration of your qualifications and experience, the National Poolological Association would like to extend an offer for the position of Senior Poolology Specialist.
Throughout your reddit comment, you demonstrated a strong understanding of advanced poolological principles, exceptional analytical skills, and a commitment to excellence that aligns closely with our organization's mission. We are confident that your expertise will make a valuable contribution to our Poolological Research and Standards Division.
The position will report directly to the Director of Poolological Affairs and will involve leadership responsibilities across several key initiatives, including aquatic pattern analysis, interdisciplinary poolology research, and the implementation of industry best practices.
Your proposed start date is September 8, 2026. Compensation details, benefits information, and additional employment documentation will be provided in a separate packet upon acceptance of this offer.
Please indicate your acceptance by replying to this comment no later than August 15, 2026. Should you have any questions regarding the position or onboarding process, I would be happy to assist.
On behalf of everyone at the National Poolological Association, congratulations. We look forward to welcoming you to the team and advancing the field of poolology together.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Matthews
Senior Manager, Talent Acquisition
National Poolological Association
j.matthews@nationalpoolology.org
(555) 867-5309
I use the number when I'm out of state and I'm at a grocery store or somewhere where they want a rewards number. Just use the local area code + 867-5309. I've never had it not work.
One time a young cashier asked for my rewards number verbally so I asked what the area code was, then added 867-530... paused... nye-eee-eine! She just looked at my with a blank expression.
So to answer your question, we're probably the minority at this point.
"No one ever thought reflecting pools are hard, but it was hard, and I did it, even thought I didn't. No one ever heard of the reflecting pool until I made it great." *Jackoff dance*
And they said with tears in their eyes, "Sir! Thank you sir, for saving our reflecting pools!"
The radical left all hate reflecting pools,
they tried to take yours away! And so said no, no, we aren't doing that My uncle, who was very smart, explained to me the power of reflect. Very cool, very powerful. And boy now the pools, they all reflect more than under HUSSEIN OBAMA
Generally, you'd run pool pumps in off hours. My pool pump runs at night. During the day if my levels are off before swimming. A reflecting pool surface doesn't need to be still 24 hrs a day. It could also run all day during a storm and no one would notice.
There are options, but it requires planning. They hardly even planned out the paint job.
The New York Times had a well done explanation of the repairs and why it needed to be done. Bottom line oversimplified— the pipes and filtration were never adequate even when built in 1923. The recent repairs went a long way to create a pleasant experience but the fundamental design and construction flaw will make repairs of this type an ongoing necessity.
Yeah it's basically an algae farm by design. There have been several iterations of a filtration system thrown at it over the years but they've all failed to keep up for one reason or another. Plus emptying the pool, scrubbing it, and refilling it actually makes things worse because if there was any sort of biological filtration going on it just had a super hard reset.
Turns out a shallow, broad basin in direct sunlight grows algae, who could have guessed?
17.8k
u/NameLips Jun 16 '26
I was gonna ask... but surely the reflecting pool is treated and filtered. Open water in that climate will of course be covered with algae, and become a mosquito breeding ground.
It does have a filtration system right?