DDonald Trump has a new enemy, and a name worthy of a supervillain: Scenedesmus.
The Reflecting Pool on the National Mall has become the nation’s most advanced science experiment, with workers battling nature. After a week of fighting, they’ve basically killed one species of algae invading the pond, only to make room for a new species to take over. And Scenedesmusa genus of green algae called “Skinny Dead Mouse” by scientists, is now thriving, according to experiments that were conducted at the request of Atlantic.
The pool, at the moment, looks like a wonderful piece of modern art. As workers work on different areas, the areas that succeed in reducing the algae turn lighter shades of green. In other areas, the water is relatively clean. In others, it is oily mud. A quick glance, though, is enough to confirm that this is not the blue of the American flag that it should have been.
In the last few days, I have seen baby ducks swimming in the pond; National Park workers going around trying to clean it up; little children bending down to touch it. But none of the NPS workers on site have been able to tell me for sure whether despite all the algae—some of which can be toxic—the water remains safe.
A spokeswoman at the Department of the Interior told me “there is ongoing water testing,” but would not disclose the results of those tests. Requests to spokespeople at NPS have not been answered. I have contacted scientists who applied for permits to enter the pond and do their own measurements, but those permits have not yet been issued.
With no transparency from the federal government and no clarity on what’s in that muddy water, I decided to dig—or sink—a little deeper. Early on Thursday morning, I filled several water bottles from different areas of the pool. Some were clear, while other samples were dark green. My samples were presented to two different scientists by that evening.
Wchicken algae first began to flourish in the Reflecting Pool, it appeared to be a blue-green cyanobacterial bloom that had taken over. The images showed a type of green film that could indicate the algae, which in some cases can produce a neurotoxin that is harmful to people and pets. When Hans W. Paerl, a professor of marine and environmental science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, opened a bottle of one of the samples I collected, he noticed a distinct earthy odor reminiscent of other cyanobacterial blooms he had smelled before. Under the microscope, he could see the remains of the previous flowers, but they were too damaged to recognize. He attributed this, in part, to endless cans of hydrogen peroxide that workers had poured into the pool to kill the algae. “Guys dealing with peroxide treatments can kick their backs,” he told me. “But it doesn’t solve the overall problem.”
In fact, it has created a new problem: Green algae, perhaps in the absence of blue-green algae, is thriving. “He’s a violent farmer,” Paerl said. “What has happened is that they have changed the players. And green algae is the first to take over.”
“I’ve never seen it bloom this big,” Greg Boyer, professor emeritus of biochemistry at the State University of New York, who analyzed some of our samples, told me.
Boyer ran additional tests that revealed that there was a small amount of blue-green algae in the sample, making it less likely to be toxic. That’s to be expected, he said, at least for now. “This is the peak season for green algae,” he said. “We are very early in the blue-green algae season.” In the next few weeks, at the end of July, that could change.
The treatments the NPS currently uses to combat blooms—hydrogen peroxide and nanobubble technology—are more effective against blue-green algae. The green algae growing now, Boyer and Paerl told me, are undaunted by those methods, and so far they’re proving to be resilient. Boyer was able to perform tests to determine the current health of the algae. “They’re stressed, but they’re definitely not dead,” he said. “If I were to build an algae facility, I’d probably design a facility that had a lot of surface area and was very shallow, so you’d have sunlight all the way down. And put a lot of nutrients in it. And that’s what the Reflecting Pond is. It’s just a great facility for growing algae.” The decision to paint under the deep blue shade, scientists have told me, raised the temperature of the water and accelerated growth.
The bottom line? “The water will probably remain green for the foreseeable future,” Paerl said.
For last week, workers at the Reflecting Pool have tried to remove the algae from the bottom, with pipes connected to a vacuum pumping water into nearby drains. The work, it seems, has become an urgent matter, with an email sent out to NPS staff asking for volunteers to work 12-hour shifts and help pump out algae as part of “essential work requirements before July 4th.” Email, that was information and the MeidasTouch Network, described the operation as “a regional and national priority.”
Yesterday evening, I saw several people in the middle of the pool. They were dressed in DC office uniforms of khakis and dress shirts, wearing waders while cleaning. As one of them finished his shift, handing over his equipment to NPS staff, he said he was “just doing my part.”
But another problem has also emerged: The dam at the bottom of the dam, which was a major part of the $16.4 million renovation project, is beginning to unravel. By yesterday evening, the entire piece had disappeared. Tourists and locals were gathering at the site where Martin Luther King Jr. he spoke to where protesters denounced the Vietnam War, only to see a tornado—or perhaps even a memorial.
“Taking a piece of paint is like taking a piece of the Berlin Wall,” a passing cyclist told me. “It’s a piece of history.”
