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The troublesome Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool in Washington is “probably” going to be drained for repairs, Donald Trump has said, after algae blooms and peeling paint marred the controversial recent renovation efforts for America’s 250th anniversary celebrations next month.
In a Truth Social post late on Saturday, Trump said that after meeting with pool contractors, they would “probably be forced to release and drain much of the water in order to do the necessary repairs, but will have them done as quickly as possible”.
He had earlier acknowledged “real problems” with the pool in the wake of a hasty $14.2m makeover.
But he went on to blame the problems on vandals, saying “many additional people have been arrested having to do with the disgraceful Vandalism of our beautiful Reflecting Pool”.
CBS News reporter Emma Nicholson tweeted that an administration official told her five people had been arrested for vandalizing the pool and another five issued federal citations, bring the total number of police reports filed to 14, including one related to an alleged 250ft gash in the pool.
Trump claimed on Saturday several people had been arrested for alleged vandalism. Three-time Olympian David Hearn, who was apprehended, told the Washington Post that he had merely stopped by the pool to touch one of the peeling pieces of paint liner to see how it felt, when he was arrested by US park police on a misdemeanor charge.
Trump gave no details on any other apparent arrests and exact details of such apprehensions remained scant on Sunday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, said on Sunday afternoon that citations for vandalism had been issued and people caught vandalizing the 2,000-ft-long reflecting pool will be fully prosecuted.
“Anyone who is in a position of vandalizing or attempting to vandalize will face the criminal justice system in DC,” Pirro told Fox News’s Sunday Briefing.
Anyone adding products to the pool that can generate algae could face more severe charges, Pirro added, but did not offer statistics or specific details of arrests.
Workers from the US National Park Service have sought chemical remedies for the algae bloom, including pouring hydrogen peroxide into the shallow pool, which is estimated to reach temperatures of more that 85F in the summer months.
Trump posted on social media that 75% of the algae was gone on Friday, when he first raised the issue of vandalism and accused ABC News journalist Jonathan Karl of “trying to rip the rubber off of the surface” of the pool.
ABC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump said in his latest post on the topic that immediately after the expensive renovations, which included painting the bottom of the long pond on the National Mall in the heart of historic Washington dark blue, that the pool was in fact reflecting better than ever.
“It hasn’t looked or worked like this since 1922, when it was originally built, but even then, it leaked badly, and didn’t work,” he wrote. “Ours,” he added, “worked perfectly, including the mirror like finish, perfectly reflecting the two Great Monuments, which it never had before!”
He was referring to the memorial commemorating Abraham Lincoln and the Washington Monument.
He cryptically cited vandals, possibly the same ones who had previously scorched or roughly etched “8647” – numeric slang for cancelling, or “86ing”, Trump, the 47th president – into the lawn near the pool earlier this month.
Trump said that the alleged pool damage “does not even include the earlier killing of a large amount of grass which was, by far, the least of it” and he accused vandals of taking “some form of knife or blade, and put a 250 foot long gash into the beautiful facade and of pouring chemicals into the pool”, but again without specific details.
