In May 2026, posts on social media sites such as X and Facebook claimed the news media was unfairly criticizing U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts to repair Washington, D.C.'s Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which sits between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument.
The posts compared Trump's efforts, which have not yet been completed and are projected to cost at least $13 million, with a reconstruction during former President Barack Obama's administration that cost around $35 million and ultimately failed to address the pool's issues.
(X user @ksorbs)
Snopes readers searched the site looking for more details on the two projects.
Comparing the sum of money Trump's and Obama's administrations have spent renovating the reflecting pool doesn't make sense for a few reasons.
Ideally, we would compare the final costs of both projects, but becase the work on the reflecting pool during Trump's presidency is ongoing as of writing, there's only an estimated final cost for the current repairs. It's also unclear whether the Trump administration's estimated cost is accurate — the budget for the job has already risen from $1.8 million to $13.1 million, according to The New York Times.
Additionally, reporting showed that the Obama-era reconstruction of the pool was more complex than what the Trump administration has planned, and it's therefore natural that it would cost more money, even if the repairs failed to address the pool's problems.
Finally, posts questioning why the media had criticized only Trump's project did not acknowledge that the president has repeatedly ignored the standard review processes required for construction projects in Washington, or that the failed repairs under Obama were covered by the news media.
Because the two repair projects aren't similar enough to be compared fairly, Snopes has elected to not rate this claim.
With that said, the social media posts sharing the claim did present the correct numbers. By searching the USASpending database, Snopes found the federal contracts for the repair work between 2010 and 2012 and in 2026. The Obama-era contract, awarded to Corman Construction, totaled $35.3 million, while the current Trump contract, awarded to Atlantic Industrial Coatings, totaled $13.1 million as of this writing.
What's wrong with the reflecting pool?
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was completed in 1923 and is maintained by the National Park Service. It has faced numerous problems in its century of existence.
Because Washington is largely marshland, the reflecting pool was built on soft ground. What's more, it was built without a solid support structure. So even though the pool is only 30 inches deep at its deepest point, the massive amount of water it holds (at least 6,750,000 gallons, roughly as much as 10 Olympic-size swimming pools) led to the pool's foundation sinking about a foot into the ground over its first 80 years.
According to Washington Post articles detailing the Obama-era reconstruction, the pool's structural system pre-2010 had been failing for decades, and its cracked bottom meant it was leaking 500,000 gallons of water each week (30 million gallons per year) — a situation made even more dire by the fact that the pool's water
By 2010, it was a "fetid wreck," as one Washington Post writer put it.
The Obama-era project
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The project underwent an environmental review and was reviewed and approved by the Commission of Fine Arts, which is required by law to review approve all designs for certain areas in Washington, including the National Mall.
The reconstructed pool officially opened in August 2012 and immediately faced a different problem: Within a month of its reopening, according to The Washington Post, the pool was filled with green algae.
The algae wasn't a new problem. Algae thrives in warm water with good access to sunlight, and the large surface area and shallow depth of the reflecting pool keeps the water warm, practically perfect conditions for algal growth. The environmental review for the reconstruction noted that water was chemically treated to prevent such growth, and the pool was regularly drained and refilled.
The new design accounted for algal growth, too — its new pumping system featured filtration systems and ozone-disinfecting pumps specifically meant to help control the amount of bacteria and algae in the water.
"But no one expected the amount of algae that is there now," according to The Washington Post.
In the following years, it became clear that the reconstruction had not fixed the leaks, either. According to The New York Times, it was still leaking 16 million gallons of water each year as of May 2026.
The Obama administration's failed reconstruction cost at least $35 million.
National Park Service officials in both Trump's first administration and former President Joe Biden's administration attempted to come up with a new plan to fix the pool's numerous issues. That plan is three-pronged: seal the joints between the concrete slabs that make up the pool's bed to prevent leakage, add a better filter to prevent algae growth and replace two miles of damaged pipes that feed water into the filter.
But the cost of the repairs was "unexpectedly high," according to the Times. The National Park Service decided that without repairs, its best course of action was to drain and clean the pool each year.
The Trump-era project
As of May 15, 2026, the Trump administration has contracts out for two of the three parts of that plan, and the social media posts are correct in saying that the work has seen more media scrutiny. However, that scrutiny has focused on the project's methodology, not its cost.
The administration issued a $6.9 million no-bid contract to Atlantic Industrial Coatings for sealing the concrete joints, applying waterproof coating to the bottom of the pool and painting the bottom blue. The contract was later increased to $13.1 million. At different times, Trump has claimed that the company worked on swimming pools at his properties and, conversely, that he has "never used [Atlantic Industrial Coatings] before."
While the government is normally required to seek out multiple bids, the Times claimed the administration hand-picked the contractor without considering other bids by using an exemption meant to prevent "serious injury, financial or other, to the government."
When asked what the injury was during a congressional hearing, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said it was a "a record amount of deferred maintenance," adding that "we would want to have our nation's capital looking great" before July 4, 2026, the United States' 250th anniversary. (Trump has also said the project will be completed by then, though the repairs appear to be rushed and running behind schedule, according to news reports.)
The Times also reported that Trump's administration did not seek approval from the Commission of Fine Arts for the project. (It's also worth noting that Trump fired and replaced the entire board in October 2025.)
Trump's administration also has awarded a $1.7 million contract to Green Water Solutions to upgrade the water purification system, in line with the second prong of the improvement plan.
The administration has done nothing to address the cracked plumbing as of yet, though the Times reported that the administration hoped to start that work in the fall.