A worker in a blue shirt and hat uses a long pole to skim the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, with the Washington Monument visible in the background.
REUTERS/Eric Lee
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The $14 Million Paint Job on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool Is Already Peeling Off and Floating to the Surface

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The blue coating on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool started peeling off in sheets last week, weeks after crews refilled the pool in early June. Dark flecks and flaps of the new sealant are now floating on top of green algae-choked water.

The $14 million job was awarded as a no-bid contract to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, a firm with prior work on Trump properties and limited federal contracting history. President Trump originally pitched the project at under $2 million and framed it as a quick fix to waterproof the bottom and tamp down the pool’s chronic algae problem ahead of the country’s 250th birthday on July 4.

A worker clearing algae from the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, painted blue, in Washington, D.C.
Algae removal underway at the blue-painted Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., on June 14, 2026, as crews prepare the landmark for U.S. 250th Independence anniversary celebrations. Photo by Eric Lee / REUTERS.

The material isn’t house paint. It’s a polyurea sealant meant to waterproof and color the concrete in one pass, and coating specialists say this kind of failure usually traces back to bad surface prep, rushed application, or chemical incompatibility. All three may be in play here: the timeline was tight, and Park Service crews dosed the water with hydrogen peroxide on June 16 to fight the algae bloom. Peroxide is an oxidizer strong enough to strip paint, and the coating started lifting two days later.

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A worker in a blue shirt and hat uses a long pole to skim the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, with the Washington Monument visible in the background.
REUTERS/Eric Lee
A worker clearing algae from the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, painted blue, in Washington, D.C.
Algae removal underway at the blue-painted Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., on June 14, 2026, as crews prepare the landmark for U.S. 250th Independence anniversary celebrations. Photo by Eric Lee REUTERS.