Preservationists are asking a federal judge to immediately halt President Donald Trump’s ongoing project to resurface the reflecting pool on the National Mall.
In a lawsuit filed Monday in federal district court in Washington, a nonprofit group contends that the National Park Service violated the National Historic Preservation Act by beginning to repaint the bottom surface of the landmark in a bright blue color.
“The vivid blue coating will fundamentally alter the visual and experiential character of the pool and the broader Lincoln Memorial Grounds landscape,” the complaint from the Cultural Landscape Foundation and its president, Charles Birnbaum, alleges. “The new coloration will cause the pool to resemble a large swimming pool rather than the reflective civic landscape it was designed to be, distorting the experience of the site for the millions of visitors who come to it each year.”
Trump has repeatedly touted the project as a money saver and ridiculed President Joe Biden’s administration for overseeing a renovation of the pool that Trump contends left it unattractive and in disrepair. Last week, he took his motorcade through the drained pool to survey the work and stopped to praise the team applying the blue coating.
