Donald Trump has hit a major snag in his efforts to refurbish one of D.C.’s most recognizable landmarks as part of his wider bid to revamp the nation’s capital in his own image ahead of America’s 250th birthday.
A trade union official told The Guardian that the president may be risking workers’ safety by charging ahead to complete renovations at the Reflecting Pool ahead of the quarter-millennial anniversary in July of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
“With this project, they are trying to rush on a timescale that is most likely to leave some liability with the contractor,” Herbert Zaldivar, business development director at the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, told the newspaper Sunday after observing work at the site.
He added that no one working at the site has spoken with him yet because he believes “they are afraid to touch the subject.”
“The chemicals are hazardous,” Zaldivar said. “My concern is usually the level of risk when it’s a rush. Are workers taking the rightful steps to protect themselves?”
The pool has long suffered from leaks and algal blooms, leaving its waters with an unfortunate green tint.
Trump has vowed to fix the problem in time for the July celebrations, and last month granted a contract to Virginia-based firm Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which he said has performed similar work at his golf club.
He has tasked the group with painting the pool floor “American flag blue.” Trump has further shared bizarre AI-generated images of himself basking shirtless in its waters with members of his Cabinet, among them Vice President JD Vance, along with an apparently fictitious woman in a bikini.
The Guardian reports that rival companies in the sector are unimpressed by Atlantic Industrial Coatings receiving the award without competition. Zaldivar told the newspaper he’d spoken with firms in the industry who wanted to know why they hadn’t been afforded an opportunity to bid on the project.
“It’s very rare that a job like this, which is a publicly funded contract, doesn’t go to a competitive bid,” he said. “This didn’t go through the right processes, so we lost the chance for a union-affiliated contractor to be part of the competition.”
Trump is also understood to have dramatically underestimated the cost of the contract. He told reporters originally that the work would come in at $1.8 million. Latest estimates put it at $13.1 million.
The president has since tried to distance himself from Atlantic Industrial Coatings. He has now claimed he never used their services in the past, and that he played no role in granting them the deal for the work.
The Reflecting Pool is far from the only D.C. project to have drawn scrutiny. Trump’s most expensive, and controversial, change to the capital’s cityscape remains his demolition of the White House’s East Wing to make way for a 90,000 square foot ballroom, the cost of which has ballooned from an initial $200 million up to $400 million.
Trump has insisted the work is being funded privately by “patriots” and major corporations. But Senate Republicans are separately seeking roughly $1 billion in taxpayer money for security-related aspects of the East Wing renovation.
He is also pressing ahead with a 250-foot “triumphal arch” on federal land across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial. A group of Vietnam War veterans has sued to halt the structure, calling it a “vanity project” that was never authorized by Congress, and warning it threatens to obscure views of the Arlington National Cemetery.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.
