The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool renovation was promised to the public at a million and a half to two million dollars [3][4]. On Sunday, with the bill at roughly sixteen million and the new coating peeling off the bottom of the pool, the Interior Secretary went on national television to say the repairs still to come will be "a small number" - and that the failure was not the contract's fault but vandals' [1][2].
Walk the money first. The coating contract - awarded without competitive bidding - grew to $14.7 million. The nanobubbler brought in to fight the algae blooms that turned the water green added $1.7 million more [3][4]. That is about eight times the promise before a single repair of the failed coating is priced. Burgum's comparison, that this cost "a fraction" of "a $34 million contract" from 2010-2012, borrows the price of a full reconstruction to flatter a coating job [1][5].
Data
| The promise | 2 millions of dollars |
|---|---|
| Coating contract | 14.7 millions of dollars |
| Plus algae cleanup | 16.4 millions of dollars |
| 2010-2012 full reconstruction | 34 millions of dollars |
The most telling fact in the record belongs to the company that fixed the pool the last time. The firm behind the 2010-2012 reconstruction examined this project's fast-track coating approach, judged it unfeasible, and declined the work [5]. The job went elsewhere, without bids, and the coating began peeling within a month [4]. The failure was not just predictable; it was predicted, by the most qualified people to predict it, before the first dollar moved.
Which brings us to the vandals. Burgum told George Stephanopoulos the peeling is sabotage - "multiple gashes that add up to 350 feet across" - supported by video and eyewitnesses. Pressed to produce any of it, he declined, saying that is "up to the courts" [1][2]. A claim of 350 feet of coordinated criminal damage to a national monument, made on national television, backed by evidence nobody is allowed to see, is doing one job: converting a procurement failure into a crime committed by someone else.
Maybe the video exists. If it does, showing it costs nothing and settles everything. Until then, the checkable record reads: a two million dollar promise, a sixteen million dollar no-bid bill, a coating that failed on schedule, the qualified contractor who refused the job - and a secretary calling the difference "a small number" [1][3][4][5]. The number has a size. Taxpayers are covering it.
