On Wednesday morning, workers poured hydrogen peroxide into the Lincoln Memorial Pool in Washington.
The treatment is the latest attempt by the Interior Department to control algae blooms that have left the pool glowing green despite a costly renovation by President Donald Trump to give it the blue of the American flag to mark the country’s 250th anniversary. High temperatures and climate change are among the risk factors that may cause an outbreak of an epidemic.
The Trump administration spent more than $14 million updating the pool ahead of the festivities in the U.S. capital. The work was performed under a no-bid contract by a company that had never worked for the federal government. (However, according to. It worked on President Donald Trump’s golf courses New York Times.)
Algae began to form less than a day after the updated pool was unveiled last week. Spokesman for the Department of Interior he told CNN that the bloom was caused by “algae residue from supply lines that lay dormant for eight weeks.”
One problem appears to be the water source. The Reflecting Pool usually draws its water from a nearby tide pool, which is often filled with algae. During periods when algae is high, water utilities switch to municipal drinking water. The U.S. Department of the Interior did not immediately respond to WIRED’s questions about what water source currently feeds the pool.
Another issue is the weather. High temperatures create a “perfect storm for [algae] will bloom,” says Hans Paerl, a former professor at the University of North Carolina’s Institute of Marine Sciences. Pearl says standing water makes the problem even worse. “Lakes and reservoirs all over the world – they all have this problem this time of year.” Washington is expected to experience warmer-than-usual weather by the end of the week, which could make the bloom more difficult to control.
Paerl also points to another related factor that the Trump administration has shown it is in no rush to address: climate change.
“It’s getting hotter and the blooms are spreading around the world and moving to higher latitudes,” he says. “It’s clearly a temperature effect that allows them to optimize growth.”
In addition to hydrogen peroxide, the Department of the Interior is “deploying advanced nanobubble ozone technology” to keep algae at bay, an agency spokesperson told WIRED in an email.
Trump touted work on the pool, which includes painting it blue and fixing leaks, while claiming that a company hired by the government would be able to make the repairs “in much less time and for much less money.”