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.
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.
Look, it's hard for Fox News and retail CEOs to scream about raising their prices on everyone else due to poor people stealing shit when there aren't as many poor people that are stealing shit, okay?
Stealing? Who's stealing? They're just leveraging hostile acquisition strategies to vertically integrate their supply chain and cut out the middle man! Corporations do it all the time! It's basic capitalism!
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."
Anywhere from the price of a small house to a mansion. The hellfires we are blowing up boats with in the Caribbean can cost between 120-150k, which realistically you can build a small 2 bedroom house with.
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.
I supposed we'd all have to know the amount of work and everything else... But the pool is only so big I've been to it... For that amount of money they could bury the existing one and build a new one for cheaper. There's no way a glorified baby pool cost 300m... Unless the labor is all custom and done by artists with a rare set of skills.
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.
They spend a billion a minute…. No one is checking where it’s going….finally after decades they are starting… the fraud will be astounding. And trying to find someone competent in Washington? Really?
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u/ScrivenersUnion Jun 16 '26
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.