President Trump’s attempts to turn the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington DC a bright “American Flag” blue in time for the nations’s 250th anniversary have already come unstuck (like the blue pool liner) with an uncontrollable algae bloom that has turned much of the pool a turbid shade of green.

https://www.wired.com/story/reflecting-pool-full-of-algae-climate-change/

The Trump administration has blamed “residual algae from the supply lines which have been sitting dormant for eight weeks”. The article in Wired however points to a number of different issues:

i. The Reflecting Pool usually draws water from the nearby Tidal Basin which is often filled with algae. During hot weather when high amounts of algae occur, the water supply is meant to switch to municipal drinking water. It is unclear whether this switch has taken place.

ii. Hotter weather in general, and climate change in particular mean that algae blooms are expanding globally and moving up into higher latitudes according to Hans Paerl, a former professor at the University of North Carolina’s Institute of Marine Sciences.

“It’s just getting hotter, and these blooms are expanding globally—they’re moving up into higher latitudes,” he says. “It’s clearly a temperature effect allowing them to optimize their growth.”

The problem is made even worse by the stagnant water of the Reflecting Pool.

Right now contractors are busy pouring large quantities of hydrogen peroxide into the pool in an attempt to control the growth of algae, but the problem is that hydrogen peroxide in high concentrations (12% or higher) acts as an aggressive solvent of standard glues like cyanoacrylates, and causes the binder and paint to lift off the bottom of the pool.

Reputable contractors use specialised pool-grade adhesives such as hybrid polymers or PVC vinyl cements  like HH-66 Vinyl Cement that are resistant to normal shock levels of peroxide. But all the recent work on the Reflecting Pool has been done under a no-bid contract awarded to one of Trump’s personal friends (a MAGA donor) with apparently little or no due diligence or oversight being carried out.

According to Wired, a spokesperson for the Interior Department has told them that are now “deploying high-tech nanobubble ozone technology” to keep the algae at bay.

This apparently refers to infusing water with microscopic ozone gas bubbles (smaller than 200 nanometers) that remain stably suspended for weeks.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0043135424010479

One potential problem here is that the process works seems to work best under conditions of high salinity - The Reflecting Pool is filled with potable fresh water.

Edited 16 hours ago16 hr by toucana
capitalised "University" correctly and elided double "the"

Is there anything D Trump touches that doesn't turn to sh*t ?

5 hours ago, toucana said:

President Trump’s attempts to turn the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington DC a bright “American Flag” blue in time for the nations’s 250th anniversary have already come unstuck (like the blue pool liner) with an uncontrollable algae bloom that has turned much of the pool a turbid shade of green.

https://www.wired.com/story/reflecting-pool-full-of-algae-climate-change/

The Trump administration has blamed “residual algae from the supply lines which have been sitting dormant for eight weeks”. The article in Wired however points to a number of different issues:

i. The Reflecting Pool usually draws water from the nearby Tidal Basin which is often filled with algae. During hot weather when high amounts of algae occur, the water supply is meant to switch to municipal drinking water. It is unclear whether this switch has taken place.

ii. Hotter weather in general, and climate change in particular mean that algae blooms are expanding globally and moving up into higher latitudes according to Hans Paerl, a former professor at the University of North Carolina’s Institute of Marine Sciences.

“It’s just getting hotter, and these blooms are expanding globally—they’re moving up into higher latitudes,” he says. “It’s clearly a temperature effect allowing them to optimize their growth.”

The problem is made even worse by the stagnant water of the Reflecting Pool.

Right now contractors are busy pouring large quantities of hydrogen peroxide into the pool in an attempt to control the growth of algae, but the problem is that hydrogen peroxide in high concentrations (12% or higher) acts as an aggressive solvent of standard glues like cyanoacrylates, and causes the binder and paint to lift off the bottom of the pool.

Reputable contractors use specialised pool-grade adhesives such as hybrid polymers or PVC vinyl cements  like HH-66 Vinyl Cement that are resistant to normal shock levels of peroxide. But all the recent work on the Reflecting Pool has been done under a no-bid contract awarded to one of Trump’s personal friends (a MAGA donor) with apparently little or no due diligence or oversight being carried out.

According to Wired, a spokesperson for the Interior Department has told them that are now “deploying high-tech nanobubble ozone technology” to keep the algae at bay.

This apparently refers to infusing water with microscopic ozone gas bubbles (smaller than 200 nanometers) that remain stably suspended for weeks.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0043135424010479

One potential problem here is that the process works seems to work best under conditions of high salinity - The Reflecting Pool is filled with potable fresh water.

To make matters worse, at least according to something I have read, painting the pool dark blue has made it reflect the sunlight less well so the water gets warmer, further encouraging algal bloom. A real 6-cylinder cock-up.

Two characters from history and fiction come to mind.

King Canute

The Queen of Hearts

A real side cracker to wake up to, thanks @toucana . +1

CNN recently took samples of water from the Reflecting Pool and gave them to a DC pool maintenance firm for analysis. The results showed phosphate levels far in excess of the 100 parts per billion (ppb) level regarded as problematic for controlling algae.

According to this blog article about pool maintenance, at those levels, algal blooms are inevitable

https://phoslocker.com/blogs/news/the-link-between-phosphates-and-algae-growth-in-pools

“Algae are primitive organisms that need three things to survive: sunlight, water, and nutrients. Your pool provides the first two in abundance. Phosphates provide the third. When phosphate levels rise above 100 parts per billion (ppb), you've essentially rolled out the welcome mat for algae. At levels above 500 ppb, you're practically guaranteed to fight algae all season long, regardless of how much chlorine you dump in.”

The primary sources of phosphate contamination include:

• Lawn fertilizers washed in by rain and runoff

• Leaves, pollen, and organic debris

• Certain pool chemicals and treatments

• Municipal water supply

• Swimmers and pool toys

CNN story link below:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TUWFJZey5jI

Trump is claiming that the Reflecting Pool was vandalised (by the left, of course). Would that even be possible (short of an industrial scale event)?

1 minute ago, KJW said:

Trump is claiming that the Reflecting Pool was vandalised (by the left, of course). Would that even be possible (short of an industrial scale event)?

They have even arrested a guy for stopping to pick up a bit of the peeling paint. Reality must be made to conform to Trump’s fantastic lies. But he’s a former Olympic canoeist, 67 years old, and not even black, so they will struggle to sustain the narrative that he’s vandalising the pool.

I’m a bit surprised the parks police would stoop to this but maybe they are all Trumpy.

52 minutes ago, exchemist said:

I’m a bit surprised the parks police would stoop to this but maybe they are all Trumpy.

He’s sent in the national guard to arrest paint peel collectors. This order probably isn’t illegal / refusable

50 minutes ago, iNow said:

He’s sent in the national guard to arrest paint peel collectors. This order probably isn’t illegal / refusable

Can he deport them to some shithole country?Or to some aligator infested prison in the Florida Swamp?

Must be difficult to read their residence documents with all that green slime,though.

They could collect all the algae in scum bags. The administration has plenty of those.

When you have a nation's leader arresting people for removing paint peels - a task you will have to have someone do later anyway before repainting - you would think this might trigger more GOP to acknowledge the "emperor has no clothes" situation. It may be a scapegoating attempt, but it's demented enough for a six year old to see through.