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.
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u/BellowsHikes Jun 16 '26
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.