It would be hilarious if it wasn’t wasting 14.2 million dollars on a no bid contract that we all knew was going to fail since it was, just like everything Trump, surface level.

    • Rose@slrpnk.net
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      5 hours ago

      Fun reminder: Most natural swamps aren’t actually toxic. Until some human-made toxic spills which complicate things.

      Really puts the DC “Swamp” in perspective, huh. What are they doing over there, I wonder

  • melsaskca@lemmy.ca
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    10 hours ago

    If you shine special lights on the algae it could cure the pool. Maybe some “Poolscumvermectin”?

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    11 hours ago

    Honest question: Why were there no algae in there before the renovation? I have tried to figure this out and can’t find anything on it. If they really “just” painted everything blue, why would there be suddenly a growth of algae?

    • anon_8675309@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      There is algae from time to time. Obama had to update the filtration system (yes he did the work all by himself while wearing a tan suit) because of algae.

      Trump copies everything Obama does but is purely incompetent.

    • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.worldOP
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      9 hours ago

      Algae has been a problem for that pool, which all pools suffer from not just this shallow oversized one. Previous administrations has looked into this and their contractors/experts told them that there are fundamental issues with the pool that includes foundational issues such as cracked piping under the pool and filters that ain’t filtering right.

      HOWEVER, This idiot decided that he would give a no-bid 14.2 million dollar contract to a contractor that doesn’t even do pools, just industrial waterproofing, and then had them just seal some cracks and put on a coat of dark blue paint. And you have to realize that dark colors absorbs more light and that heats up the pool water even more and you what loves heat? Algae. Now with the use of tidal water with the bad filters and pipes that are still leaking and pulling in nutrients/junk with a even warmer pool, well that how you get lots of algae.

      Maybe this is just Trump trying to get into the algae-based bio fuel industry in a 4d chess move but maybe he’s just a moron.

    • Eh-I@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      What I heard™ was that the new color paint is darker so it causes the water to warm slightly creating more favorable conditions for an algae that was already a bit a bit of a problem, turning it into a bear of a problem.

      That’s what I heard.

    • DragonAce@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      There was algae before, but not near as bad from what I understand. IIRC they last did repairs and maintenance on the reflecting pool under Obama. Which may or may not have been part of the reason Trump wanted to redo them.

      • Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        That’s what the orange kid-diddlers does, takes what Obama did (with varying degrees of success), tears it down, siphons millions for himself and his cronies, then gives us a shittier version of it.

        Much like Iran

    • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      Low 8 figures is an unfathomable amount of money to most people, but insignificant on the scale of federal spending. The news media are eating this up because of the Mossad-captured kiddie-diddling elephant in the room.

  • D_C@sh.itjust.works
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    16 hours ago

    Bleach…you mean the stuff that should be injected in people’s veins to get rid of covid, that stuff?

    Man, bleach is just wondrous stuff. Is there nothing it cannot do!!!

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    24 hours ago

    I appreciate the fact they didn’t measure how much they need, they just went to the pool store and bought a bunch of residential sized containers.

    • GraniteM@lemmy.world
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      10 hours ago

      Does this work like not using enough antibiotics and it will actually make the algae stronger?

      • [object Object]@lemmy.ca
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        9 hours ago

        I don’t think algae can evolve bleach resistance.

        Bleach basically tears apart the molecules inside the cells and destroys the proteins they need to function. Antibiotics usually exploit some specific weakness in bacteria to kill them, which can be evolved around.

        If you don’t use bleach enough it’ll kill the outer layers like a film and leave harder to treat algae to dominate, but the algae can’t overcome the effects of bleach. Chlorine is smaller than cellular molecules, so it’ll always permeate.

        At that point they’ll need to physically scrub the whole thing or massively increase the concentration to shock it.

        Source: had a pool as a kid, when we would go on vacation we’d come back to it being green. The basic chlorine wouldn’t cut it and we’d need to buy pool shock, which was just more concentrated chlorine to kill the floating stuff, then we’d have to scrub and vacuum the algae from the surfaces.

        Edit: I just checked Wikipedia, they’re using 12% hydrogen peroxide. Apparently that breaks down quickly in the sun though, so it’s unlikely to do anything for the majority of the algae.

        According to pool websites you need a 35% concentration, so this is going to do nothing at all at this concentration.

        So basically, an actual treatment would need literal tons of peroxide applied repeatedly. The dinky bottles they’re pouring in by hand won’t do shit.

        It also is known to form a film, so it won’t kill algae without scrubbing, which they’re using army rangers to do… but even though they’re scrubbing it’s still not enough concentration to kill algae and bacteria.

        It’s an either make work program or complete incompetence by a pool company that’s only worked on pools with pumps and filters. Or both.

        • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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          8 hours ago

          Funny thing is, the reflecting pool has pumps and filters, they’re just in disrepair (along with a bunch of other infrastructure-level stuff). Instead of actually addressing the root cause of the issue, Trump decided to give it the ol landlord special and slap a coat of paint on it.

      • anomnom@sh.itjust.works
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        9 hours ago

        It’s probably going to mess with the Ph and damage the pool pumps and etch the brand new “millions” of dollars of paint.

        Too much %HOCl, and you make the water too acidic and hurt pumps and metal in the system.

        • [object Object]@lemmy.ca
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          8 hours ago

          Apparently they’re using peroxide not chlorine

          But peroxide breaks down in water and sun, so they’ll need a lot of it.

          Apparently they added a bubbler, but who knows if that’ll work.

          • ramjambamalam@lemmy.ca
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            8 hours ago

            Chlorine also is degraded by UV, which is why pools usually maintain some level of CYA which acts as a stabilizer to a certain degree. CYA is naturally present in granulated chlorine (dichlor) but not in liquid chlorine (bleach), which is why the “dichlor to bleach” method starts with dichlor for a while to built a reserve of CYA, before switching to bleach. Too much CYA decreases the effectiveness of chlorine, so keeping it around 30 ppm is optimal.

            Writing this got me wondering what the fine folks at TroubleFreePool think about this whole debacle… https://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/lincoln-memorial-reflecting-pool.325291/

            • [object Object]@lemmy.ca
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              8 hours ago

              Fill it full of mercury. That’s total reflective and there’s no intelligence in DC for the fumes to damage

              Lol

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      23 hours ago

      well, they fired anyone that would have given a damn, or would know the chemistry and calculations. so what they gonna do? it’s not like this administration knows how to choose or hire knowledgeable, experienced, competent, and qualified persons. why didn’t they just hire another ‘pool boy’ to ‘fix’ it at a cost of $50 million for the ‘rush’ job? (less, of course, whatever gets kicked back under the potty chair).

  • switcheroo@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    It was a grift. Who didn’t see that?

    The dumb fucker pocketed most of the cash and had a couple unqualified goons pick up some shit from Home Depot.

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      11 hours ago

      Of course, it’s the classic real estate developer kick back scheme. He gives the contract to his special Pool Guy, who totally understands that he does the job with half the budget, and kicks back the rest to Trump. Then they split the overruns, too.

      This kind of deal is Trump’s bread & butter, he’s been doing it his entire life, with absolutely no consequences at all. That’s why he is so obsessed with his building projects. They stopped his Kennedy Center renovation, but you still have the Ballroom, and the Arc de Trump, which I love to say because it is so RETARDED (sorry about that, but sometimes an extreme word is 100% appropriate).

  • santa@sh.itjust.works
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    23 hours ago

    Bleach is a cure-all. Algae, COVID, Worm brain, hand stain, sleepy meeting syndrome, etc. It’s really Windex 2.0

    /s

    • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.worldOP
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      9 hours ago

      True. I wonder how much he spent on having government employees go to the freaking local pool supply store and by shock at retail prices that literally did fuck all with the amount of water in the pool.

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    1 day ago

    I could have sworn there were articles circulating this morning that they were pouring hydrogen peroxide in there? Now bleach?

    …that sounds like a bad idea, but I’m no pool expert.

    • Godort@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      They’re talking about the same thing. The term “Bleach” is ambiguous and mostly describes a result rather than a specific chemical. It could be talking about sodium hypochlorite, hydrogen peroxide, or sodium percarbonate (or any number of other chemicals that make things white)

      • Arcanepotato@crazypeople.online
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        1 day ago

        This article specifies the use of both 12% hydrogen peroxide and calcium hypochlorite powder. Hope they turned off the ozone generator too.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        23 hours ago

        The term “Bleach” is ambiguous and mostly describes a result rather than a specific chemical.

        Sure, when used a verb…

        When someone “bleached their hair” they used hydrogen peroxide, because that would achieve a bleaching effect

        However the headline uses it as noun “dumps bleach in pool”. And I’m pretty sure that’s not correct.

        The article says hydrogen peroxide, but headlines are often written by someone else and I think that’s where the confusion came from.

        • stringere@sh.itjust.works
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          20 hours ago

          Bleach is the generic name for any chemical product that is used industrially or domestically to remove color from (i.e. to whiten) fabric or fiber (in a process called bleaching) or to disinfect after cleaning. It often refers specifically to a dilute solution of sodium hypochlorite, also called “liquid bleach”.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleach

        • hemmes@lemmy.world
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          20 hours ago

          It still also sounds like it could be used as an adjective in the headline. But, yea, they’re sensationalizing things.

        • wheezy@lemmy.ml
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          22 hours ago

          Yeah. I was gonna say. When I buy “bleach” (literally says it in the bottle) it’s sodium hypochlorite diluted in water. But I’d never want to burn my scalp with it trying “bleach” my hair.

      • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
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        24 hours ago

        It would be hilarious, ironically, if they ended up making chlorine gas because they just poured in whatever they thought would fix it.

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    23 hours ago

    Ridiculous. The Reflecting Pool is about 10x the volume of an Olympic swimming pool. Quick math tells me they need >1000 gallons to have any sort of effect.

    They put in… maybe 8 gallons?

    • scutiger@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      They had several cases of peroxide, definitely more than 8 gallons, but it was only like 12% so pretty weak stuff anyway. Nowhere near what they would have needed to clear it all up. Plus it would have been super temporary and would have ended up oxygenating the water and feeding the algae.

    • crank0271@lemmy.world
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      23 hours ago

      This administration really embodies the “good enough for government work” ethos.

    • wheezy@lemmy.ml
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      22 hours ago

      You’d think for 14 million they could at least have a couple of those little floating pool filters.

      But, in reality, a massive body of water like that is just gonna have natural things happen to it. There isn’t really a way around it unless they want to poison the local environment with chemicals.

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        11 hours ago

        Yeah, algae grows in a still, dark pond in the summer heat.

        Basically, Trump did a seventh grade science fair experiment with a $14 million budget.

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        21 hours ago

        Besides the concrete cracks, the Reflecting Pool needed new pipes to the filtration and distribution building (the wrong ones were installed and ground settling cracked them, they’re leeching water into the soil). They also needed to waterproof the expansion joints which, although temporary sealed by the liner they installed, will eventually leak again when the liner rips due to further settlement.

        Once again, Trump puts lipstick on a pig and kicks the problem down the road so he can look good until he’s gone.

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      24 hours ago

      You already know they’re gonna dump a water bucket on it and make a nether portal the second you let them do that shit dude🙄

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      14 hours ago

      LuxSpark makes some good points. Lets make him our president. No, I am not kidding. He’s the best candidate we have at the moment and we all know it.