President Donald Trump finally has the “after” photo he spent months and millions chasing. The fences are gone, the water is clear, and tourists can once again stroll up to one of Washington’s most photographed views like nothing ever happened. On the surface, it looks like the happy ending the White House has been promising since spring. But the surface, as it turns out, may be exactly the problem. Donald Trump’s months-long Reflecting Pool makeover is finally open to the public, but critics say one detail could bring the algae right back. (Photo by Maxine Wallace/The Washington Post via Getty Images) Trump’s critics already sat through the first installment, the one where the president promised perfection, the water turned green and the blame went everywhere but up. Now, some fear the sequel is already baked in, with warnings arriving before the mess this time rather than after it. After months of peeling paint, algae blooms and a vandalism case that fell apart, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has officially reopened. ‘Since 1989’: North Carolina Man Who Crashed Fox News Broadcast at Rally Says His Disdain for Trump Goes Back to Central Park 5 ‘Cut the Crap’: Piers Morgan Explodes on Trump’s Fired Press Sec After She Dodges Questions; His Blunt Response Leaves Her Scrambling The fencing around the landmark has come down, and visitors are once again snapping pictures of the Washington Monument reflected in the water, WUSA9 reported. Getting here wasn’t cheap. Trump launched the project in the spring, vowing to spruce up the century-old landmark for the nation’s 250th birthday. A job he initially priced at around $2 million, according to NPR, ballooned into a roughly $16 million paint job, per NBC Washington. Within days of the June refill, algae turned the water green and pieces of the new coating began peeling off the bottom, forcing crews to drain it again. Rather than own the failure, Trump blamed vandals. Former Olympic canoeist David “Davey” Hearn was arrested after stopping at the site during a June bike ride and touching a piece of coating he said had already come loose. Federal prosecutors later dropped the charge, acknowledging that the damage resulted from what they described as a “botched installation” by the contractor. So when the fences finally came down, attention turned back to the water. One D.C. resident who has been documenting the saga on Threads noticed something familiar beneath the surface. “It’s true! The Reflecting Pool is full. The fencing is down. And the water is very clean,” the user wrote. Then came the catch. According to the poster, the pool appears to have the same dark “American flag blue” coating Trump personally demanded. “So not only does it look inky black, but come the summer that is going to warm up to ‘algae incubator’ temps again, and we will probably get a return of the gross sludge and slime,” the post continued. In a follow-up, the poster argued that the dark coating could raise the water temperature and contribute to another algae bloom. The poster also explained that the pool’s blue appearance comes largely from its reflection of the sky, rather than the color of the surface beneath the water. That warning echoes what experts were saying months ago. When the freshly painted pool turned green in June, swimming pool specialist Steve Goodale told NPR the darker surface would absorb more sunlight, warm the water and lead to “more prolific algae growth.” George Mason University aquatic ecologist Rosalina Stancheva Christova added that the shallow, sunny, shade-free pool was already ideal for algae and that blooms could return every summer. Online, plenty of people saw this coming. “So we spent millions giving the algae a luxury resort,” one user wrote in the comments section, while another joked, “Make Algae Great Again.” Others went straight for the receipts. “Did we get a refund for the botched pool refinishing job?” one person asked. A different user reminded Trump of his actual job description, writing, “He was not voted in as an interior decorator or design contractor.” Not everyone saw the same thing, though. One parent said her daughter visited with her class and was happy to see water back in the pool, adding, “And it wasn’t, as far as I could tell, painted blue.” The pool has also become a go-to punchline on the campaign trail. At a recent Ohio rally for Democratic candidates, former President Barack Obama took aim at Trump’s old “drain the swamp” promise, joking in a clip shared on X that the only thing that got drained was the Reflecting Pool “after some no-bid contract got it all messed up.” The jab landed a little harder considering Trump’s Interior Department pointed fingers at the Obama-era renovation, which also faced algae problems after the pool reopened in 2012, according to NPR. Trump previously admitted his handpicked pool guy talked him into the blue paint in the first place. As the bills piled up, costs crept toward $20 million, and Hearn’s camp has since demanded an apology over a case that should never have been brought. For now, the water is clear and the fences are down. Whether it stays that way once D.C.’s summer heat rolls back in could land taxpayers right back where they started. View on Threads Trump’s $20M Reflecting Pool Makeover Revealed, But Critics Spot One Detail That Could Send it Back to Square One  ...read more read less