‘Rushed’: Trump’s contractor blamed own work – not vandals – for reflecting pool debacle

Washington: The contractor that renovated the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has told the Trump administration that errors in its own work and flaws in the repair plan, not vandalism, caused the pool’s new blue liner to peel and break loose, according to government documents reviewed by The New York Times .

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed vandals wielding knives or box cutters for damage to the pool’s “American flag blue” liner, even after the Justice Department dropped charges that it had brought against people accused of vandalising the national landmark.

But the documents, which have not previously been reported, make clear that the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, found problems in the design and execution of the renovation. The documents include Atlantic’s reports to the government and daily progress updates from the National Park Service over the past two months.

Atlantic blamed its own errors in a report dated August 14 and then provided more detail on September 2, the documents show. The Justice Department, which had charged several people with vandalising the pool in early July, began moving to dismiss the cases on July 31.

Because of “human oversight”, workers in some areas did not spray enough of the primer that made the layers of the liner stick together, Atlantic said in the documents. But the bigger problem, the company said, was that the repair plan laid out in the contract called for the layers of liner to include two chemicals that turned out to be incompatible.

The chemical on top reached a temperature hotter than what the compound underneath could withstand, and the heat caused the bottom layer to blister and come loose, the documents show. The contractor said it had not expected that outcome because it was very uncommon to mix the two products in that way.

The failure illustrates the consequences of the Trump administration’s rushed effort to renovate the pool in the northern spring. Hurrying to finish the work before the nation’s 250th birthday on July 4, the government bypassed competition and gave Atlantic a no-bid contract to carry out an untested approach designed in part by the general manager of one of Trump’s golf clubs.

The government has agreed to pay Atlantic $US14.7 million ($20.5 million) for its work. The contractor has said it will repair the pool, which is under warranty, again.

Katie Martin, a spokesperson for the Interior Department, did not directly address questions about the contractor’s findings, but issued a statement that appeared to continue blaming vandals for the damage, saying they had “repeatedly reached into the pool and ripped at the coating”.

Martin said that Atlantic was now “well on its way” to repairing the pool. She did not say when it would be refilled.

The pool is still drained, and repairs appear to be ongoing. On Thursday, the pool was full of workers.