The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool repair will be handled by the same company that won the no-bid contract to renovate the pool in the first place, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has confirmed.
In an interview with CNN on Sunday, Burgum claimed, without providing evidence, that the cuts at the bottom of the pool were caused by vandals. He also said that the pool will be “partially drained” in order to make necessary repairs in the coming weeks.
“We’ll use the same company, because they did a fantastic job,” Burgum explained, while declining to answer how much the repair itself would cost. In a separate interview with ABC News, Burgum said it would be “a small number.”
“Every farmer and rancher in America… knows that it [the coating] would never just peel off or fall off. This is a strong material,” Burgum said. “The only way you can end up with actual slices in one spot and not the other is that someone physically cut it.”
Following the peeling of the painting at the bottom of the pool, the Trump administration said it has arrested seven people in connection to the alleged crime of vandalism. Burgum claimed that the administration has “video and eyewitness reports” that would support the charges, but so far has not presented any evidence to the public. One of the suspects, David Carter Hearn, a former Olympian, denied the charges and said he only reached his hand into the water and touched a strip of the peeling paint.
“The reflecting pool had gone for, you know, decades without vandalism, but now we’ve got cameras up and we’ve got more eyes on it… if anyone were to do something now, we would have better video evidence of that happening,” Burgum said.
The companies that won the no-bid contracts
Atlantic Industrial Coatings, a construction company that President Trump said has previously worked on his swimming pool at his golf club in Sterling, Virginia, initially won a $13.1 million no-bid contract despite having no previous experience in federal construction. The cost later ballooned to $14.6 million, with additional work from the National Park Service, federal records show. The company was tasked to repaint and waterproof the pool’s concrete floor, which Trump previously claimed that the renovation would cost under $2 million.
According to the New York Times, Atlantic Industrial Coatings submitted a bid that charged 20 percent of profit margin, far exceeding the usual profit margins for other federal contractors which range from six percent to 12 percent. The bidding process as well as the quality of the company’s work are both now under congressional investigations.
Aside from the peeling of the waterproof coating, the reflecting pool has been plagued by an algae bloom, a persistent problem due to Washington’s high heat during the summer and the pool’s shallow depth, which creates an ideal biological incubator. Previously, the Obama administration spent approximately $34 million trying to solve those problems, but failed to keep the algae from growing.
Last month, the reflecting pool turned from blue to green days after the renovation was complete, and contractors were seen pouring bottles of hydrogen peroxide into the pool in an attempt to kill the algae.
During the interview, Burgum also said the green algae that was permeating the pool has now been fixed, thanks to nanobubbler technology that pumps tiny ozone bubbles into the water to damage algae’s cells. In April, the contract was awarded to Green Water Solutions, a water purification company from Ohio also known as Greenwater Services, without a bidding process, for $1.7 million.
The owner of the company, John J. Cafaro, has been a longtime donor to Trump’s campaign since 2016, FEC filings show. In 2010, Cafaro pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations over donations to his daughter’s congressional campaign. He also pleaded guilty to bribing a Democratic congressman from Ohio in 2001.
In an interview with CNN, Chas Antinone Jr., COO of Greenwater Services, admitted they have never used their nanobubbler technology on a pool before, but remained confident that the company’s technology can treat the water.
“The water is relatively the same as the water that you would see out in a regular lake somewhere,” Antinone said.
The post Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool Repairs Awarded to Same Contractor appeared first on TIME.
