When The New York Times published its Aug. 5 visual investigation, “Visual Analysis Finds Dozens of Defects in Reflecting Pool Renovation,” most attention centered on the peeling waterproof liner that ultimately led federal prosecutors to abandon their vandalism case against Olympic canoeist David Hearn.
But buried deeper in the investigation were several new details about the Reflecting Pool's algae bloom. Those details provide additional support for an explanation first explored by Service Industry News in its July 1 analysis — that the green water was less the result of a mysterious contaminant than the startup challenges of commissioning a newly restored, four-million-gallon outdoor water system.
Several explanations emerged as the bloom spread. On June 11, Dept. of the Interior spokeswoman Katie Martin told The Washington Post that the algae was “residual” from supply lines that had sat dormant during construction and called it “part of the normal startup process.”
The New York Times investigation added important context. It reported that the Reflecting Pool holds approximately 4 million gallons of water and is designed to circulate that volume through its treatment system about every three days. The newspaper also revealed that temporary nanobubble ozone units being used to commission the new treatment system were removed on June 12 while preparations were underway for an event on the National Mall. The units were returned roughly 36 hours later, but the algae bloom was already underway, leaving the effect, if any, of the interruption unclear.
None of those details proves what caused the bloom, and the Times itself stopped short of drawing that conclusion. Taken together, however, the new information is consistent with the explanation Service Industry News explored in July.
At the time, Service Industry News argued that the greatest challenge was unlikely to be the long-term performance of the treatment system, but the process of establishing biological control in a newly filled, four-million-gallon outdoor water body. The subsequent reporting has added several facts that are consistent with that interpretation, while leaving the precise cause unresolved.
Commercial pool professionals have described the same fundamental challenge. Speaking to the Associated Press on June 16, Cochise Wanzer II, president of Pool Service Company in Arlington, Virginia, observed: “You're basically taking natural, untreated river water, pumping it in and expecting it to do something different from what it would do out in the open.”
No publicly released engineering report has identified a single cause of the algae bloom. But taken together, the available record now points toward a startup process complicated by residual algae, the sheer scale of the four-million-gallon system, and interruptions in commissioning.
Startup is not an event but a process. Even sophisticated treatment systems need time to establish biological control, and on a body of water measured in millions of gallons, that process cannot be rushed.
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