The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is the largest of the many reflecting pools in Washington, D.C. Dedicated in 1922, it is a concrete-bottomed roughly rectangular pool that as of 2012 holds about of water. The pool is located on the National Mall, in between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.
The Reflecting Pool attracts 24 million visitors annually. It is lined by walking paths and trees on both sides. Depending on the viewer's vantage point, it reflects the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Mall's trees, and the sky.
Many marches and events have been held at the Reflecting Pool, such as the March on Washington and the Commitment March. A celebration of the then soon to occur inauguration of Barack Obama named the We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial was held in the area on January 18, 2009.
The pool was originally built with a bottom of asphalt and tile, and was supplied from the city's drinking water supply, and in its initial plans was going to be cruciform shaped, although this never came to fruition. Starting in 2009, the pool was completely rebuilt and the bottom was replaced with concrete slabs supported by timber pilings. The Reflecting Pool was also changed to be supplied with water from the Tidal Basin, instead of the earlier-used D.C. potable water.
In 2026, the pool was resurfaced at the order of president Donald Trump with a blue polyurea coating, and a nanobubbler filtration system was added. After a few days, the coating began to peel and the Reflecting Pool sustained an algal bloom. Trump claimed that acts of vandalism caused the coating to peel; but this was never substantiated. The U.S. Justice Department later admitted in a legal filing that the 2026 renovation had been "hasty and botched", and the problems were not caused by vandalism.
Description The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was designed by Henry Bacon. The groundbreaking for the Lincoln Memorial and the pool was on February 12, 1914, and they were dedicated on May 30, 1922. During construction, the pool was nicknamed by some sources as a "water mirror". When originally constructed, it was approximately long and wide. It was completely rebuilt between 2010 and 2012. The pool was originally built with an asphalt and tile bottom, but was replaced with concrete in the 2009 restoration. The nearby walkways and the rim of the Reflecting Pool are made of granite.
Before the 2009 restoration the Reflecting Pool held of water. According to former U.S. secretary of the interior Ken Salazar, it now holds about of water.
History
Initial creation
Planning
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was part of the McMillan Plan, which was used as a blueprint for most federal government buildings in Washington D.C. The Reflecting Pool was originally designed to be cruciform with round edges, with the smaller secondary pool, the Rainbow Pool, situated between it and the Washington Monument. The two small arms of the cross for the Reflecting Pool were removed from the plan due to the presence of nearby US Navy buildings. These structures, including one that housed munitions, obstructed the area for the proposed excavation work. The round edges of the pool were also changed to be square.
Because the Reflecting Pool and the Rainbow Pool were built on reclaimed marshland, various steps were taken to prevent the pools from settling in a way that would cause them to appear unequal. These steps included supporting parts of each pool with bedrock that was deep below the ground, and building part of the pools in a way to account for eventual settlement.
Systems that could be used to drain and fill the water within each pool in a 24 hour period were also planned.
Construction The construction of both pools was delayed until 1919 due to World War I. Construction finally began in 1922.
The hole for the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to be built inside of was dug out using steam shovels that were carried using a modular railway that would be built, disassembled and rebuilt to move with the steam shovels as they excavated the area.
The drainage system for the pool used a concrete pipe in the middle of the pool connected to a sump pump away, that was later connected to the Tidal Basin. The initial plan to pump water from the Tidal Basin directly into the pool was also abandoned for D.C's (at that time) new potable water supply.
The Reflecting Pool was made level using 366 wood and concrete pilings that reached down to the bedrock below the pool, and a large amount of T-beams were put on top of the piles with the pool's granite coping built on top of the beams. The bottom of the pool was connected to the edges of the pool using concrete slabs that were hinged to the pool bottom.
The Reflecting Pool's bottom was made of compressed embers saturated with a variety of grades of road oil, that was then covered in sand and compressed into the embers. A three-ply layer of fabric saturated with asphalt with felt laid on top of it was then used to waterproof the bottom of the Reflecting Pool. It had to be repaired while being constructed after heavy rain disrupted the work, causing the fabric to wrinkle and become uneven.
The unevenness of the fabric caused the layer of mastic asphalt planned to be applied afterwards to finish the pool to be too difficult to complete. Instead, slate coated in asphalt was used as a replacement.
2009 restoration
Using funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the National Park Service reconstructed the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. The project was managed by the Louis Berger Group. Construction on the 18-month, $30.74 million project began in November 2010. In May 2011, workers began sinking the first of 2,133 wood pilings into a layer of soft, marshy river clay and some dredged-up material atop bedrock to support a new pool. The pool's water supply system was updated to eliminate stagnant water by circulating water from the Tidal Basin; the pool was formerly filled using potable water from the city. Paved walking paths were added to the north and south sides of the pool to replace worn grass and to prevent erosion. The pool reopened on August 31, 2012.
Post-restoration operation Within weeks of the pool's reopening in 2012, it had to be drained and cleaned for $100,000 due to algae in the pool. The algae growth almost completely covered the surface of the pool. The National Park Service said that, using an ozone disinfectant system installed during the restoration, they would double the amount of algae-killing ozone in the pool in an effort to control future outbreaks. In 2013, construction on the National World War II Memorial damaged the eastern end of the Reflecting Pool. National Park Service workers closed the eastern of the pool in August 2015 to repair the basin, work that was completed in the summer of 2016. The Reflecting Pool was completely drained in June 2017 to control a schistosome outbreak. The parasite, which causes swimmer's itch, infected the snails that inhabited the pool and ultimately killed more than 80 ducks and ducklings in a few weeks during spring 2017.
2026 renovations
In April 2026, U.S. president Donald Trump announced the resurfacing of the concrete bottom of the pool, in a color he called "American flag blue" (most likely Old Glory Blue), had begun. The reason given by Trump and his administration for this project was to make the pool "beautiful" and to remove algae. On May4, Trump stated that the improvements to the Reflecting Pool "will last for at least 50 years and you'll never have a leak".
On May 7, after the pool was coated and before it was filled with water, the presidential motorcade drove down the pool basin and then Trump got out and gave a statement to reporters. NBC and Forbes showed footage of the cars leaving tire marks in what appeared to be a patch of wet paint. According to Snopes, "It is unclear whether the motorcade may have contributed to the paint peeling off a month later."
On May8, the Interior Department said they planned to pay $13.1million for the project. Trump chose the various factors of the changes without reviews by federal agencies, opportunity for public comment, or congressional approval.
Atlantic Industrial Coatings (AIC), was provided its first federal no-bid contract to fix leaks from the joints in the Reflecting Pool and to waterproof the pool's concrete bottom. Trump originally stated that AIC had previously performed work for him, but later retracted that claim, stating instead that the contract had been awarded by the Department of the Interior. The companies Creative Polymers and Rhino Linings were responsible for providing the polyurea liner, which was to be installed by Atlantic Industrial Coatings. According to the president of Creative Polymers, delivery of the final product was complicated by supply shortages due to US tariffs on importation of resins from China. The project also included a new nanobubbler water purification system installed by the company Greenwater Services, which is owned by a neighbor of Trump's at Mar-a-Lago; the company also secured a no-bid contract for the work. The contractor who had previously renovated the pool declined the Trump administration's offer to do the new renovations because, according to two employees interviewed by CNN, the 2026 project was "unfeasible".
On May11, nonprofit group the Cultural Landscape Foundation sued the Trump administration to prevent the project from continuing.
Post-renovations operation
The work was completed on June5. Within days of the refilling of the pool, algae bloomed in the pool. National Park Service workers poured hydrogen peroxide into the pool and manually vacuumed the pool in an effort to remove the algae. The New York Times spoke to employees of Greenwater Services, who said the National Park Service had asked them to remove the nanobubbling purifier systems from the pool's rim for Trump's UFC Championship set on the White House lawn. According to the same employees; by the time they were reinstalled 36 hours later, the algae was in full bloom.
Scientific American identified the blue thick-film elastomeric coating as a brand of polyurea coating from Rhino Linings called Pipeliner5000. According to two experts in elastomeric coating interviewed by WBAL-TV, this polyurea coating has been frequently used before in water features to create a waterproof barrier as it cures quickly and remains flexible. As it began to peel off the bottom of the pool soon after the completion of the project, various engineers and pool experts interviewed by the American media postulated that the peeling might have been caused by a variety of factors, such as, but not limited to: the resurfacant used, heat, UV radiation, the presidential motorcade driving over the pool after its completion, the use of hydrogen peroxide in the pool and the adhesion of the coating used to granite. In addition to the Pipeliner sealant, AIC used Rhino406 epoxy primer and Rhino11-35 polyurea.
A National Park Service engineer emailed the Trump administration on June 11 to report that the liner was peeling.
Trump claimed in late June that both the algae and the peeling of the new material in the pool were caused by vandalism; multiple media outlets reported at the time that there was no evidence for these claims. A Trump administration official later told CBS News that, in regards to the alleged vandalism, 14 police reports were filed, with five citations issued and five arrests made, including that of Olympic athlete David Hearn. Hearn was indicted by a grand jury on a federal charge that he had, in the words of US attorney Jeanine Pirro, "woefully destroyed property". He pled not guilty.
On June 23, Trump announced that the pool would be drained for repairs. Atlantic Industry Coatings also confirmed this.