Park Service will drain, repair Reflecting Pool after July Fourth, court filing says

By Kaanita Iyer, CNN

(CNN) — The National Park Service will drain and repair the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool after July Fourth celebrations, the agency’s deputy director for operations said in a court filing Wednesday.

“The National Park Service plans to begin draining the reflecting pool following the Independence Day celebration to conduct repairs, including assessing and repairing any damage to the lining,” NPS Deputy Director for Operations Frank Lands said in the filing.

The filing provides a firm timeline for when pool repairs will begin as President Donald Trump said on Truth Social Tuesday that it would be drained “either immediately before or after the Fourth of July.”

Lands, in the filing, also furthered the Trump administration’s allegations of vandalism, saying in the filing that about “70 fence post tops were thrown into the pool,” and a caulk over the foam sealant “was cut with a sharp knife or razor.”

The deputy director’s declaration was filed as part of an ongoing legal battle over the pool, which has been riddled with issues in recent weeks from claims of vandalism to algae bloom and peeling blue material.

A nonprofit sued the Trump administration last month over the president’s order to paint the pool blue, arguing that the project violates federal laws requiring the Interior Department to complete a consultation process that includes notifying the public and getting input from other federal agencies before beginning the work.

On Monday, lawyers for the nonprofit said in their own filing that recent developments reinforce the need to require the administration to follow certain procedural steps.

But lawyers for the administration argued Wednesday that the problems plaguing the pool “have nothing at all to do with the legality of the agency decision that Plaintiffs challenge.”

Trump took a personal interest in the pool earlier this year as part of his efforts to “beautify” the nation’s capital. In late March, he said on Truth Social that he was working to fix the pool along with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. The pool had previously gone through a two-year renovation in 2012 during the Obama administration.

In the weeks that followed, Trump expanded the scope of the project and ordered cosmetic changes, including painting the bottom of the pool a shade of blue that resembles the American flag’s blue field.

The renovation was also expedited so it would be completed before the country’s 250th anniversary.

But signs that the project did not go according to plan emerged just a day after the reservoir was filled earlier this month with quite a bit of algae visible from the water’s edge.

Within days, clumps of algae took over the pool, prompting the administration to send in workers to vacuum it out, install a filtration system known as the “ozone nanobubbler” and dump gallons of hydrogen peroxide in the pool.

Last week, blue material at the bottom of pool began peeling off. The president then said several people were arrested for vandalizing the pool.

An Interior Department spokesperson told CNN Thursday there have been 18 police reports filed for vandalism of the pool, adding that seven people were arrested.

In Wednesday’s filing, Lands said on June 9, US Park Police responded to an NPS report of a cut in a caulk over the pool’s foam sealant.

Trump has repeatedly mentioned a “gash” in the pool as he continues to rail against alleged vandalism of a project he was personally invested in. He has offered varying descriptions — first calling it a 250-foot cut and then increasing that measurement. He later said there were “actually numerous slashes over a very long 350 foot length.”

Wednesday’s filing did not provide any details about the length of the supposed cut.

The New York Times reported earlier this week that internal government documents showed that NPS workers “found two cuts in sections of foam between the pool’s expansion joints,” each 171 feet long. However, the Times said, the documents did not make any allegations about how these reported cuts ended up in the pool.

Earlier this week, CNN spoke with several visitors, a majority of whom were not pleased with the renovation.

Mallory Boyd, 60, a lifelong DC resident who remembers riding her bike along the pool as a child, called the renovation a “waste” of taxpayer dollars.

“I think that it is a travesty that we are spending as taxpayers this much money on a restoration that was afoul and for something that was not necessary,” she told CNN on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Tad Wagner, who is visiting Washington, DC, from Kansas, was satisfied with the pool.

“I’ve read a couple of reports that they spent a lot of money to redo it. I think it looks good,” Wagner said, adding that claims that the pool has been vandalized were “really disappointing.”

Jaclyn MacDonald, who traveled from upstate New York to see the pool, stressed to CNN on Tuesday that the debate surrounding the pool is history in the making.

Describing the pool as “pretty gross,” she added: “I told my kids that, you know, one day we’re going to read about this in history books, we’re going to read about what happened to this Reflecting Pool and the national disgrace that it is, and I want to be able to say that I was there.”

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CNN’s Michael Williams, Katelyn Polantz, Devan Cole and Daniel Dale contributed to this report.