By Ben R. Williams
One of my favorite college classes was a special semester on the history of D-Day, taught by one of my favorite professors, the great Dr. Tom Carter.
The class culminated with several trips to the D-Day Memorial in Bedford. If you’ve never been, it’s well worth the trip. Our assignment was to pick a section of the memorial and write a paper about both its significance to D-Day and also its symbolism.
Dr. Carter explained to us that when it comes to memorials and statues, every single choice is intentional. For example, the Statue of Liberty lifts a torch that represents enlightenment, and was positioned facing southeast to symbolically welcome immigrants arriving at Ellis Island.
Another memorial with deep symbolism is the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
Since construction began in 1914, the reflecting pool’s purpose has been to provide a calm, still area for quiet contemplation. Symbolically, in reflecting the image of the Washington Monument, it is also intended to reflect America’s values.
The reflecting pool is currently the epicenter of a firestorm of a controversy. Let’s examine the timeline.
The first major restoration of the reflecting pool occurred in 2009. The restoration replaced the asphalt and tile bottom of the pool with concrete and replaced the rim and nearby walking paths with granite. To eliminate stagnant water, the pool’s water supply was reconfigured to circulate water from the nearby man-made Tidal Basin. Construction was completed in 2012 and the pool was re-opened. There were a few issues that needed to be managed afterward, but for the most part, the pool has functioned as intended: it’s still, it’s quiet, and it reflects the Washington Monument.
In April, President Donald Trump announced that the concrete pool would be resurfaced in “American flag blue” and that the pool would be cleared of all algae and made beautiful.
Normally, a multimillion dollar project like this would go out to bid, but this particular project was a no-bid contract. In order to justify a no-bid contract on a federal project, it usually has to be an emergency, a matter of national security, or a project requiring such specialized knowledge and skills that only one hand-picked vendor could possibly accomplish the task.
Resurfacing the reflecting pool doesn’t strike me as a matter of national security or an emergency, so it must have been a project requiring unique expertise and proprietary technology.
Who did Trump pick to supply said expertise?
The first contractor was Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which, in an insane cosmic coincidence, also fixed the pools at Trump National Golf Club.
The second contractor was Greenwater Services (no joke), owned by John Cafaro, a long-time Trump supporter, Mar-a-Lago neighbor, convicted felon, and cigar-chomping weirdo who looks like Gomez Addams if he ate Uncle Fester.
Atlantic Industrial Coatings sealed the pool’s concrete bottom with the American flag blue paint, while Greenwater Services refurbished the reflecting pool’s filtration system.
Now, just to be clear, I’m not saying that these two contractors were chosen not for their expertise but for their willingness to give Trump kickbacks. I’m sure they were chosen solely because they were the only contractors endowed with the great expertise to bring this project across the finish line. I say this both because it is my deeply held belief and also for legal purposes.
Anyway, the project was completed on June 5, and a few days later the reflecting pool began filling with algae. As it turns out, dark colors tend to trap heat, and the dark blue coating on the bottom of the pool turned it into a primordial soup. The White House then sent National Park Service workers to dump jugs of hydrogen peroxide into the water, which successfully killed the algae around the outermost perimeter of the reflecting pool, along with at least one baby duck.
Shortly thereafter, the blue pool coating, having performed admirably for a couple of weeks, began peeling off in strips. Whether this was caused by improper application or all the hydrogen peroxide is anybody’s guess.
For his part, Trump immediately blamed the peeling coating on shadowy vandals armed with mysterious chemicals. Five of these vandals have already been arrested. So far, it appears their crime was not destroying the pool coating, but taking pieces of it that floated to the surface as souvenirs. Trump went on record as saying that destruction of federal property carries a ten year prison sentence which he intends to fully enforce.
There are those who say that Trump has destroyed the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. I disagree. The reflecting pool is still functioning exactly as intended by symbolically reflecting our nation’s current values.
Unfortunately, those values are corruption, greed, ignorance, and the persecution of political rivals, but you can’t blame the pool for that.
