Greenwater Services is using a $1.7 million “ozone nanobubbler” to clean the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, but the temporary machines were taken out before the permanent system was fully in place. That gap was followed by an algae bloom, while a no-bid Apr
On a pool that has resisted clarity for decades. the plan sounded almost mechanical: shoot 500 million microscopic bubbles into every teaspoon of water. inject the oxygen to oxidize algae and bacteria. and keep the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool looking the way it’s supposed to for the July Fourth celebrations marking America’s 250th birthday.
The technology—an $1.7 million “ozone nanobubbler” system—was supposed to be the answer. Instead, the effort quickly became something else: a high-stakes public spectacle where water quality and politics moved on the same timeline.
Greenwater Services. the company hired to manage the Reflecting Pool’s water quality. has now brought in a crisis communications firm as questions swirl. Chas Antinone. president and chief operating officer of Greenwater Services. was asked whether the company’s part of the project had gone according to plan. His response was a single word: “Yes.”.
“I’ve got no political affiliation in this thing whatsoever either way. And I don’t really care about that part,” Antinone said. “Our job was to come here and bring a technology that we think can keep the Reflecting Pool looking clean and reflect the way it is supposed to.”
A review of campaign finance reports, both federal and in Ohio, showed no contributions made by Antinone.
Still. Greenwater Services and its no-bid contract have been pulled into the wider storm after algae returned for a time. and after Trump campaign donations by the company’s owner came to light. The pool itself has become a symbol for people on different sides of America’s political divide—and for some. a test of whether the president’s broader renovation project is failing.
Questions also remain about whether the nanobubbler will work over the long term. The Department of the Interior has not set a timeline for the more extensive repairs to decades-old pipes that are necessary to keep the technology running.
Greenwater Services says it understands the stakes. It walked through a detailed timeline of its work with the Trump administration, describing why it had to move fast to meet the demand that the pool be refurbished by July Fourth.
From the start, the permanent ozone nanobubbler unit had not yet been fully fabricated in Ohio for the job, even though the Reflecting Pool was being refilled with water. Greenwater Services brought in temporary equipment to get the system running before the permanent structure was finished.
On June 6—two days after the pool was refilled—four stand-alone mobile machines were placed in the Reflecting Pool. They could be seen with the naked eye. The company said the temporary units made small white plumes of bubbles as nozzles shot nanobubbles into the water. and that the four machines were operating at the same amount of power that the permanent system would have had.
At that point, the water was clear, and the company said everything was working well.
Greenwater Services would not comment on the time gap when the temporary systems were removed. The Interior Department and the White House did not respond to questions about why the call was made to take the machines out of the water. The New York Times first reported on the removal of the temporary systems.
On June 12. a source close to the project said Greenwater Services was asked by the National Park Service to remove the temporary structures. with no reason given. The four units were taken offline and off-site by the company. An algae bloom appeared. according to a person close to the project and video images of the pool captured that afternoon by a CNN camera.
During that 24-hour window, the Trump administration hosted a high-profile Ultimate Fighting Championship photo op on the National Mall.
The next day, the company reinstalled the temporary machines.
As the temporary units continued to run, the permanent unit arrived on June 16 and installation began. On June 25, the temporary units were removed, and the permanent system began operating on its own, according to the company.
“What I think everyone learned is that when the system is allowed to run, it cleans the water and keeps it clean,” Erin Kramer said. Kramer is the crisis communications consultant—Erin Kramer Consulting—who was hired by Greenwater Services.
The permanent ozone nanobubbler technology is not placed directly in the Reflecting Pool. Instead. the technology is housed in a small pump house. in the US Park Police stables just off the Reflecting Pool. CNN exclusively obtained photos of last week’s installation of the technology in the pump house with the National Park Service. showing the system kept behind closed doors.
The water used in the process is pulled from municipal water, the Interior Department confirmed. It comes in and is filtered again. This is when Greenwater Services’ technology steps in.
An oxygen concentrator pulls air in and sends an electrical current that breaks up O2 into pure oxygen molecules to form “ozone.” That ozone is injected into the master water pipe through a series of patented nozzles with pressure. The master pipe splits into numerous preexisting smaller pipes that run around the exterior of the Reflecting Pool. providing inputs for water to enter.
The Interior Department previously noted the need to repair and potentially replace thousands of feet of pipes that have been in disrepair for several years. The ozone nanobubbler relies on at least some of those pipes being viable.
Antinone said a number of the pipes are viable, but he was unsure how many are up and running. It is his understanding that the National Park Service intends to test which ones are working.
The Interior Department has not responded to multiple questions about the status of the pipes and the plan for broader repair. Antinone said the piping system would be one of the first things to look at if algae returns.
Greenwater Services’ technology is new, but some scientists and independent research have framed it as promising. Heather Raymond. the water quality director for the Ohio State University College of Food. Agricultural. and Environmental Sciences. has tested and researched Greenwater Service’s technology for years.
Raymond said one reason it can be powerful is the ability for the ozone in the bubbles to stay in the water and react potentially for days. She also described a shift from earlier versions of the technology: previous iterations injected bubbles into water that would then rise to the surface. losing power and effectiveness. Raymond characterized the new approach as a “one-two punch” because it creates a microsystem for battling bacteria that is more biologically active.
“In addition to directly oxidizing the chemicals, they promote the growth of these bacteria that eat the chemicals.”
Raymond said her studies show an effectiveness rate in the 90th percentile for the ozone nanobubbler, calling it both clean and green. She was not involved in the Reflecting Pool project, and said her studies have not been funded by Greenwater Services.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has also done independent research on the technology. In research published in 2020, NOAA said the technology effectively remediates harmful algal blooms.
Greenwater Services has never used its technology on a pool before; it has worked on projects in waterways such as the Tijuana River, Ohio’s Lake Newport, and Florida’s Port Mayaca.
Raymond said the technology would ideally work best by getting ahead of algae, when installed during cooler months rather than the summer conditions with prime heat and sunlight for algae.
“If you had all the time in the world, you should launch this fall or winter,” she said.
But Greenwater Services faced a tight deadline to make the pool clear by July. Antinone said the company tried to frame that pressure as part of the learning process.
“If we had put this in here and there’s no algae, we wouldn’t have learned anything,” Antinone said. “The whole goal here is to make the process better, so every time we do something, we should learn a little bit.”
The controversy around the effort extends beyond the technology itself. Like Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings. which Greenwater Services enlisted to resurface the pool bottom with a blue material. Greenwater was allowed to bypass a competitive-bidding process typically done for government contracts. Greenwater was awarded a no-bid contract in April.
The company’s co-owner, J.J. Cafaro, has been tied to politics and legal trouble. Cafaro is a longtime supporter and donor to Trump and lives near his Mar-a-Lago club in South Florida. Cafaro pleaded guilty in 2001 to conspiracy to bribe Rep. James Traficant Jr., an Ohio Democrat.
An Interior Department spokesperson said in a statement. “The White House was not involved in the selection process for any contract and did not weigh in on the companies selected. Full stop. ” adding that the companies were selected because they had the expertise. workforce and materials needed to complete a huge project in the timeline required to celebrate the nation’s 250th.
The White House said in a statement that it “did not play any role in the selection process.”
Greenwater Services has sought to distance Cafaro from daily operations. A company spokesperson said Cafaro “is an Ohio-based businessman who invested in the Ohio-based company after the owners showed him research done on local Ohio bodies of water. ” and that he “has no involvement in the day-to-day operations.”.
CNN reached out to Cafaro but did not receive an immediate response.
Earlier this month, Cafaro defended the company’s technology to a local Ohio newspaper, the Vindicator, saying he believes the system is working and that public scrutiny over the Reflecting Pool is coming from “people who don’t seem to like Trump.”
Cafaro told the newspaper he would “never” talk to the president about his company’s work with the Reflecting Pool.
“You don’t do things to put friends in awkward positions,” he was quoted as saying.
Since early June, Greenwater Services employees have been at the pool on a near daily basis, and Antinone said they anticipate staying through the July Fourth holiday. The company tests the water daily, he said.
The next step is giving time to see how the permanent machine operates on its own. When CNN spoke to the company on Friday—one day after it went online without the support of the temporary units—Antinone said the immediate picture looked stable.
“I will tell you, the water today continues to look good, and we’ll continue to test it and see how that works,” he said.
If algae and green-hued water returns, Antinone said the company has the capability to bring in more units to the pump house to amp up the system, and that there are other options for mitigation. He suggested spot treatments—potentially with temporary machines—could also be used.
“We think right now, we treated it — it looks good,” he said Friday, while adding, “but you know, it’s going to be 100 degrees next week.”
Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool ozone nanobubbler Greenwater Services Chas Antinone National Park Service National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration algae bloom July Fourth crisis communications
So they paused the machine and algae just said “cool”??
Isn’t ozone like… super dangerous? I feel like they’re messing with the water for July 4th and then acting surprised it goes weird.
I don’t get why it was “no-bid” though. If the cleaning was already $1.7 million, why not just finish it? Also ozone nanobubbler sounds like something you’d see on a TikTok ad and not DC water.
They took it out before the permanent system was in?? That seems like the whole problem right there. Also people keep saying “controversy,” but maybe it’s just algae doing algae stuff, like every other pool I’ve seen. Meanwhile they want 500 million bubbles or whatever and then it turns into politics. smh.