Donald Trump’s administration has funneled another $2.65 million of taxpayer funds into renovating the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, bringing total costs for the project to nearly $20 million.
In July, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the Trump administration would not seek any new contracts after costs exploded to more than $17 million.
But federal spending records show that the National Park Service awarded a nearly $2.7 million contract last week to American Ag Energy Inc., for the maintenance, repair and rebuilding of water purification and sewage treatment equipment.
The president initially said a refurbishing project for the iconic 2,030-foot pool could be done quickly for $1.5 million in time for White House-backed Fourth of July celebrations in Washington, D.C.
But those costs quickly surged to nearly $7 million after an initial no-bid contract was handed to a Virginia-based firm that did not appear to have previously held a contract with the federal government.
That company, Atlantic Industrial Coatings LLC, was awarded another $6.2 million in May. On June 3, the company received another $1 million, followed by more than $461,000 on June 15.
The shallow pool, which the president repeatedly promotes as “bigger than skyscrapers,” was refurbished with a shade of dark blue and outfitted with “advanced nanobubbler technology” to tackle algae blooms that have long plagued the landmark.
But shortly after workers refilled the pool, the algae returned, and the recently applied sealant in the Trump-requested blue hue started to peel and float to the surface.
The monument was then closed off with fencing and the pool was drained once again to repair the damage and redo the work.
Last month, Ohio-based Green Water Solutions, also known as Greenwater Services, was awarded $1.8 million to install a water-purification system.
And last week, American Ag Energy Inc. was awarded $2.65 million to maintain and repair water treatment, records show.
Those contracts bring the project's total to at least $19.1 million.
American Ag Energy’s founder and CEO Richard Rosen told NBC News that the company believed it would tackle the beleaguered pool’s algae problem.
“I read about it in The New York Times, and I said, you know what, I can fix this problem,” he told the network.
The Trump administration bypassed a typical competitive bid process to award the contracts to the firms by arguing that the need for renovations was so urgent that any delays would cause “serious injury” to the government, though it remains unclear what that “injury” entailed.
The president continues to rage against alleged vandalism at the pool and has pushed federal prosecutors to seek criminal charges against people he has accused, without evidence, of damaging the site.
Weeks after she publicly accused a former Olympian of “forcefully and violently” ripping out the Reflecting Pool’s Trump-requested blue liner, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro filed a stunning motion to dismiss the case entirely.
Pirro’s office admitted that the Trump-requested “American flag blue” sealant started to peel “almost immediately” after the work was completed after recent renovations to the site. The Department of Interior “provided less than fulsome information at the outset of this case,” the filing said.
It was not until after the indictment was filed against 67-year-old David Hearn that the agency determined that the “damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism,” according to the filing.
Trump later pushed Pirro to “revisit her hastily made decision,” though he has also admitted that “some contractor error” played a role in the damage.
Despite dropping felony charges against Hearn, Pirro has indicated that her office isn’t ready to close the case.
Hearn has asked a judge to dismiss the case with prejudice, which would prevent prosecutors from reviving felony charges against him for the same alleged crime. His legal team called the prospect of a new case against him “prosecutorial harassment.”
Pirro, however, is asking a judge to dismiss the case but only on the condition that her office can potentially try prosecuting Hearn again.
In a court filing last month, Pirro’s office argued that other evidence could materialize, adding that “the mere potential that charges may be re-brought does not constitute the type of harassment for which dismissal with prejudice is appropriate.”
The legal team behind Hearn — a champion canoeist who represented the U.S. at the 1992, 1996, and 2000 Summer Olympics — has argued that Trump’s comments suggest he is being targeted in a politically fueled attack.
“From day one, the case against Mr. Hearn was motivated by political considerations and devoid of adequate factual support,” lawyers wrote August 4. “Defying both decency and common sense, the government proceeded to indict Mr. Hearn before it had obtained or evaluated the information necessary to establish a good-faith basis for the charge.”
The case record demonstrates a “substantial and specific risk that, if the indictment is dismissed without prejudice, Mr. Hearn will face renewed charges, however meritless, driven by political pressure rather than the evidence,” they added.
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