The newly restored Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington will be partially drained this week after being vandalized, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said on July 5.
“We may be able to partially drain it and do the repair. To be able to fix it, we may not have to drain the whole thing,” Burgum said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos.
Vandals are accused of causing thousands of dollars in damages after allegedly using box cutters to make up to 350 feet of gashes in the recently installed industrial liner of the pool.
Burgum said authorities have video and eyewitness accounts of the alleged crimes and the fate of the suspects is up the courts now.
“Even though there was damage done by vandals that was there, it is a small, small [and] 99.99 percent of the pool bottom is perfect,” Burgum added.
The secretary did not reveal how much fixing the pool’s latest vandalism will cost but referred to the latest renovation, which cost $14.7 million, as a “big success.”
The iconic pool is nearly 2,030 feet long, 167 feet wide, and can be as deep as 30 inches at its center.
“It’s fixed in the sense that [it’s] not leaking 45,000 gallons a day, and we’ve got, you know, less than one-tenth of 1 percent of that industrial liner that’s been damaged, and that’s the only thing that remains to go back and fix the damage done by the vandals, and then we’re going to be back in business again.”
He also denied that paint was peeling off the pool, saying it was actually part of an industrial liner that was vandalized.
“This is like a strong material, and it’s the size of eight football fields, and the only way you can end up with actual slices in one spot, and the other is that someone physically cut it,” Burgum added.
Seven people have been arrested in the vandalism of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, according to Burgum on Sunday.
Hearn, who previously owned a company that manufactured materials for vessels, denied that he intentionally tried to damage the pool, telling The Associated Press that he reached into the water to inspect a section after he saw that the coating was already peeling.
President Trump separately alleged that people poured “corrosive and destructive chemicals” into the water, which may cause it to be drained.
The algae issue was fixed with “nano bubblers,” a device that caused microscopic gas bubbles to fix the issue without the need for harsh chemicals, according to Burgum, who confirmed that the organism briefly reappeared after the renovation because there was algae in the pipes as the pool was being refilled.
“If you go down there today and look at it, it is completely clean and clear, and so, for the first time, there’s [an] actual solution that involves making sure that we’ve got an algae-free pond,” Burgum said in a separate interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday.
