The company responsible for renovating the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, has acknowledged that "human oversight" and flaws in its repair plan caused the newly installed blue liner to peel and tear. This admission, detailed in documents reviewed by the New York Times, challenges President Donald Trump's repeated assertions that vandals were responsible for the damage.
President Trump has consistently stated that vandals, armed with knives or box cutters, tore apart the pool's "American flag blue" liner. However, the reviewed documents indicate that Atlantic Industrial Coatings attributed the damage to its own execution of the repair work and a flawed design plan.
The justice department had charged several individuals with vandalising the pool in early July, but prosecutors began moving to dismiss these cases on 31 July. A federal court filing stated that information later provided by the interior department showed the damage resulted from a flawed installation and the rush to complete the project for the country's 250th anniversary celebrations on 4 July, rather than vandalism.
Atlantic Industrial Coatings first acknowledged its errors in a report on 14 August, providing further details in early September. The company stated that crews failed to spray enough primer in certain areas, preventing proper bonding of the liner's layers due to "human oversight." Additionally, the design specified the use of two incompatible chemicals in separate layers of the liner, leading the top chemical to become too hot for the material below, causing blistering and separation.
The Virginia-based company was awarded a $14.7m no-bid contract to repaint and waterproof the pool's concrete floor earlier this year. The renovation was carried out on an accelerated schedule to meet the 4 July deadline. Atlantic has stated it will repair the pool again under the project's warranty.