A National Park Service employee works to remove algae in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool after recent renovations in Washington, D.C., June 20, 2026. (Daniel Heuer/Reuters)
I didn't want to write this piece, but duty calls. I have no real opinion about the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, recently resurfaced and refurbished by the Trump administration on the taxpayer’s dime (a cool $16 million), in hopes of spiffing it up for the July 4 holiday. I thought it looked nice for a few days, but now everything’s gone green, and the pool’s ever-present algal masses have returned, as they often will during humid summers in Washington, D.C. (People who haven’t lived there really have no idea how persistently, infernally damp D.C. gets from June through early September.)
It ...
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