Swimming Pool Steve can’t explain Reflecting Pool yet

An algal bloom turned the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool green after a renovation Trump’s administration promised would deliver an “American flag blue” look for the U.S. 250th birthday. As chunks of the new lining have reportedly broken off and President Don

On June 14, 2026, a National Park Service worker was seen manipulating algae in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Days later. the problem had become something bigger than a maintenance issue in Washington—chunks of newly installed lining appearing to break off. officials struggling to assign blame. and people being arrested by US Park Police for touching the water.

Steve Goodale. an award-winning pool expert who runs a YouTube channel called “Swimming Pool Steve. ” has been pulled into the spotlight by the very thing he specializes in: diagnosing why pools fail. His channel—covering topics including how to bond concrete and how to clean a used hot tub—has nearly 91,000 subscribers. But the Reflecting Pool’s decline has left a different kind of audience asking him the same question over and over: what exactly is going wrong?.

Goodale’s answer is blunt. “There’s not enough information in terms of pictures. videos. water chemistry values.” In his view. the pool’s open-air. clear-water environment and its sheer complexity make it impossible to point to one definitive fault based on what people can see from a distance. “It’s the structure, it’s the water chemistry, it’s filtration,” he said. “There’s so many moving parts here.”.

The stakes behind those technical details are real. The green bloom followed a renovation that President Donald Trump’s administration said was meant to turn the water “American flag blue” in time for the U.S. 250th birthday celebrations. Instead. the pool has become a national puzzle—one made harder. Goodale says. by what he calls an “oh. crap” moment when he sees the condition of the interior lining.

“You don’t need Swimming Pool Steve to tell you that when you see what appears to be the interior surface peeling up and floating in chunks, that’s an ‘oh, crap’ moment,” he said.

Even so, Goodale says there’s a limit to how much anyone can infer. He acknowledges that some speculation has pointed to hydrogen peroxide as a possible factor in how the bottom of the pool might be peeling. He doesn’t dismiss the idea—he says chemical resistance has its boundaries. “These interior surfaces, they’re very chemically resistant, but they’re not infinitely chemically resistant,” he said. It would still “come down to what’s being used and what concentrations of it are being used—all these unanswered questions.”.

Where he places most of his skepticism is on the broader mechanics of how a membrane system has to be installed. “You have to account for ambient conditions like rain. sun. humidity. ” he said. along with “moisture control in your substrate. thickness. evenness. and chemical compatibility.” If the material has not bonded to the substrate—“for any number of reasons. ” he said—“then ultimately the entire system will fail.”.

That framing matters because Trump has said the pool will be drained while, without evidence, blaming vandals. Goodale said he “can’t really get my head around the mechanism of vandalism that could cause this kind of damage.” From what he’s been able to see in available pictures and videos. the damage “was fairly localized stuff. ” and he said he “haven’t seen anything that shows the 250-foot gash.”.

In parallel with the debate over cause. the Department of the Interior has pointed to equipment already on site: “We’ve got the nanobubblers on. that should fix it.” Goodale describes nanobubbler technology as an ozone injection system that adds oxygen to the water. He says that. in theory. it can suppress algae by changing conditions in the pool and also help control phosphorus release from the sediment layer at the bottom. which he identifies as “the primary nutrient source for algae.”.

But the Interior Department’s confidence doesn’t settle the question of what the pool’s “blue color” depends on. Goodale asked whether sediment at the bottom would affect the color. “It certainly starts thin. but it has the potential to be a heavier layer. ” he said. describing that the answer could depend on the quality of the source water and the design of filtration.

He also says more clarity is needed about the pool’s water itself. Water from the Tidal Basin is usually pumped directly into the pool. But when there’s a lot of algae in the basin, officials switch to municipal drinking water. The administration. he says. “hasn’t answered our questions about what the source of the water in the pool is right now.”.

In a case like this, Goodale keeps returning to the same missing measurements: phosphate and nitrate levels. “Now that it’s in the pool, what’s the phosphate level? What’s the nitrate level?” he said. Those values would reveal “nutrients available for algae to grow.”

He also suggested that, if access were possible, testing could be straightforward in principle. “In theory, yes,” he said. “if this were my swimming pool, I would walk right up to it, dunk my little bottle into it and take a sample.”

That’s exactly what has become difficult for the public. Goodale said he’s seen news indicating that it’s not even possible to get near the water anymore, and US Park Police have arrested people for touching the water like it’s a biohazard.

The physical scope of the damage is another open question. Goodale said he can’t speak to costs or budget issues. but he cautions that draining a 6.5-million-gallon body of water is not a small undertaking. The real driver. he said. is figuring out whether the damage is contained or whether it indicates “some sort of systemic issue.”.

“You have to look at it as a system as a whole,” he said.

At the moment. the Reflecting Pool’s crisis remains caught between what people can see—the peeling. the floating chunks. the green water—and what they can’t yet prove: the chain of causes linking renovation choices to algae growth. lining failure. and the nutrient and water-source conditions inside the pool. Until those measurements are answered and the damage is assessed on the ground. Goodale’s biggest point may be the simplest one: there isn’t enough information to declare the problem solved.

Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool algae bloom Trump renovation nanobubblers ozone injection US Park Police Department of the Interior Steve Goodale Swimming Pool Steve hydrogen peroxide speculation Tidal Basin water municipal drinking water