The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has predictably turned green again. No matter who is in office, no matter how much hydrogen peroxide is added, the shallow, sunbaked, nutrient-rich pool will remain an ideal home for the tiny green denizens of D.C. Fixing the Reflecting Pool requires admitting the original mistake of the U.S. government, which built an algae farm on a former marsh.
Most politicians’ preferred response has been chemical warfare. The real answer lies in returning to our capital’s roots: Bring back the swamp. Healthy, mature wetlands are often far cleaner and clearer than they appear. The tea-brown tint is tannin leached from fallen leaves, not muck. A balanced ecosystem of microbes and plants deprives algae of the nutrients they need to bloom. So when I wanted to know what it would take to return the Reflecting Pool to its Edenic state, I didn’t consult swimming pool contractors. I called algae scientists, engineers and natural pool designers. A well-designed system of running water, gravel, microbes and wetland plants, they told me, could deliver crystal-clear water free of visible algae. It would slash the need for chemicals, electricity and maintenance in the troubled basin. We could even make it swimmable (though not recommended). The technology is as old as life, and as modern as the thousands of natural pools and swimming ponds successfully installed around the world from Minnesota to Germany.
The national Reflecting Pool debacle has captured Americans’ attention because it distills so much about our the nation’s dysfunction: grandiose ambitions; minimal planning, overpriced quick fixes; and catastrophic outcomes followed by deflection or denial of responsibility by those in charge. Rehabilitating the pool to reflect the Potomac Mudflats’ original glory would help rejuvenate, in some small way, the country’s faith in itself. This will not happen by the nation’s 250th birthday. The Interior Department declined to answer questions about whether it would consider a more natural approach. But an administration brave enough to do so could make the Reflecting Pool a turning point for the U.S. government’s posture toward the natural world. We can enlist nature as an ally rather than fight it to the death in a war we can’t win. What could be more patriotic than a system designed by America’s best engineers and ecologists, yet inspired and managed by the original inhabitants of America’s capital — its microbes, plants and wildlife? Forget draining the swamp. Restore it. Here’s how.
Do you have a wetland your backyard? Send me your stories and pictures to climatecoach@washpost.com. I read all your emails.
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