Washington DC—“ It’s not easy being green,” so said Kermit the Frog when things weren’t going quite right for the little green guy. And things are really going off the rails at the Reflecting Pool. Attempts to paint the Reflecting Pool with flag-blue for the nation’s 250th birthday have turned into a big beautiful green glop. Just weeks after the project was completed to impress visiting over 100 chiefs of state for the July 4th celebrations, the end result of this $14,700,00.00 paint job has gone back to the ducks. And maybe by now there’s a frog or two taking up residence.
As of Friday afternoon the entire floor of the reflecting pool looked like it was covered with a layer of pea-green soup with a couple of ducks swimming in it—that’s mallard ducks—not Canadian Geese. Canadian Geese prefer the Potomac River for the species of grass they eat and for building nests. They are herbivores but also eat insects, seeds as well as small crustaceans. The Potomac is their preferred swimming hole. But that’s still no consolation for the green to blue and back to green Reflecting Pool.
A group of U.S. National Park Police (NPS) were at the Reflecting Pool side and answered several questions about the water cleanup underway. An officer at the said they were there “to protect” the Reflecting Pool as several dozen maintenance persons were setting up hoses, generators, and other equipment that was “pumping ozone” from two sides into its center.
Newly hatched ducklings were swimming around the white bubble mix of ozone streams and it appeared they may be harming themselves. But the NPS person assured, “it was not toxic” to the ducklings or any other wildlife.
The pumping systems were loudly running at full speed and surrounded by metal fencing to keep curiosity seekers from getting too close. The “ozone nano-bubbling” project was no-bid contract awarded to Green Water Solutions for $1.7 million. This brings the Reflecting Pool boondoggle project so far to $16.4 million for peeling paint and green water.
There were scores out photographing the bottom of the Reflecting Pool, gawking at the sight, and wondering how and why it had changed so quickly from “Flag Blue” back to swampy green. It bore no resemblance to anything near the deep blue painted in the basin two weeks ago.
Many were cynically enjoying the great green blob of algae gobbling up Trump’s latest vanity project, taking pictures, joking, and smirking about it. One man said, “Yes, I love green on my flag for the 4th of July.” The green goo was almost like a second Trump smack down after a U.S. District Court Judge ordered him to take his name off the Kennedy Center last Sunday at midnight.
Why The Reflecting Pool Algae Grew So Fast
Get ready for some science. Because science is behind all of what happened to the Reflecting Pool and Mother Nature holds all the cards. Had the principles in this great green calamity consulted scientists at say, NASA or NOAA or even some biologists at the CDC for example, they may have avoided this green gooey embarrassment. But DOGE fired many top scientists or forced them into early outs during their government takedown in February 2025 and apparently did not consult scientists capable of advising them what steps to take to prevent this.
The culprit turns out to be a green algae bloom known as Desmodesmus. It grew rapidly as a result of residual algae and the rapid filling of the basin with DC water containing phosphate, a fertilizer that algae just loves, especially when exposed to ample sunlight and warm weather.
According to a water purification scientist who goes by the handle “Buttons” on Bluesky, the blue-green algae is a form of cyanobacteria which could be feeding off phosphates already in the water. One atom of phosphorus combined with four atoms of oxygen makes the basis of phosphates. Phosphates are used in many products we use everyday. Some uses are in toothpaste, detergent, fertilizer for agriculture, medicine, as well as lead remover from water. They are responsible for life as we know it.
According to the scientist, DC water is being treated with orthophosphate to remove the lead leaching into tap water from the old pipes, some of which are over 100 years old and still waiting to be replaced. While this removes the lead, it leaves behind the phosphates which turn out to be a fertilizer for algae growth.
What happened when the National Park Service filled up the Reflecting Pool was this: they used DC water containing a high enough concentration of phosphates to stimulate a sudden blue green algae bloom of the species known as Desmodesmus. This species is not toxic, but other toxic species can take over the pool as conditions change, according to the scientist.
To remove the algae, the contractor used peroxide and this worked for a time, killing the algae. But it released the phosphates bound up inside the cells of the algae, compounding the problem. What should have been done is applying a phosphate removal coagulant prior to filling the pool. These coagulants are made with either aluminum or iron based compounds. These compounds bind chemically to the phosphates without any toxic byproduct, and yield a precipitate, which sinks in water and can be filtered out of it before the water is released into the pool.
This step would have been needed before filling the pool. None of the steps of phosphate removal or algae treatment were completed before filling the Reflecting Pool. There would conceivably be even more steps to continuously filter and treat the 6.9 million gallons of water in the pool to keep at bay any new algae sources such as wildlife (ducks), dust, leaves, and insects. Algae blooms are common in untreated swimming pools and the Reflecting Pool is no different and especially in this case it would be easy to reintroduce more green colored cyanobacteria to the Reflecting Pool just from wind, dust, and wildlife.
Presently there is evidently yet another issue with paint peeling and that is being removed as well, leaving portions if not large gaps bare and they will need to be replaced at some point. The problem is that the pool is already filled with the 6.9 gallons of phosphate laden DC water.
The entire Reflecting Pool fiasco is a sort of metaphor for how the government principles have operated since last January—strike first—deny culpability—blame someone else—ask questions later. In this most recent episode they have given Kermit’s quote, “ It’s not easy being green,” frog’s wings.
This fiasco is far from over and the green is certain to return. The spectacle is so publicly prominent it will be impossible for anyone to hide or cover it up as they have done to files held in databases at the Department of Justice or court-ordered removal of letters hidden behind tarps or unpublished war-plans of a skirmish gone awry. It is also certain to inspire green memes and jokes aplenty.
