Visitors watch as National Park Service employees use vacuums to clean the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Saturday, June 20, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Staff and wire report

WASHINGTON — The saga over the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool took a turn as President Donald Trump said Tuesday that six people have been arrested over recent damage.

The president’s $14-million-plus rehabilitation project has become a flashpoint over law enforcement, aesthetics and environmental concerns from its critics ahead of the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations.

In a social media post, Trump said there had been a “350-foot gash” in the paint as the administration faces a self-imposed deadline to fix the botched renovation before the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration next week.

He has also said, including again on Tuesday, that the federal government would release images to substantiate his claim.

Trump pledged to beautify the century-old Reflecting Pool ahead of the anniversary celebrations, draining its water and having the bottom painted a color he dubbed “American flag blue.” But since the site was restored, its water has been plagued with algae bloom and pieces of the new coating appeared to be peeling off the bottom.

Trump has repeatedly blamed the peeling paint on vandalism.

“It was purposefully and criminally done, and somebody had to work very hard, probably in the dark of night, to create such a condition,” Trump wrote Tuesday, adding that another seven people were cited for allegedly damaging the pool.

The U.S. Park Police and the Interior Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the arrests or Trump’s claim of vandalism.

The Associated Press verified that one man was arrested after touching the already-peeling paint.

LOCAL CONNECTION

The federal government awarded a $1.7 million no-bid contract to Greenwater Services, a Brookfield company owned by local businessman J.J. Cafaro. to install a water-purification system for the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Cafaro, a close friend of and political donor to Trump, said the technology used by the business he owns through the J.J. Cafaro Investment Trust did what it’s supposed to do. It flushed out the algae that was in the pool’s underground pipes for years, which ended up in the reflecting pool — turning the water green — and is being removed, he said.

Cafaro, of Liberty, said the national attention the pool’s discoloration is attracting is “nothing. It is people who don’t seem to like Trump. I have no idea why this is an issue. I don’t pay much attention to it. The system is working. We weren’t hired to clean the pool, but to sell them permanent equipment to clean it forever. It turned green because the technology worked. It killed the algae in the pipes.”

A large algae bloom in the shallow pool turned much of it green.

Cafaro said his company was selected — without a bid, despite his request that that occur — because “there is no one else in the world that does what we do.”