Philadelpha, June 23, 2026 --  

A failed plan to fix the Lincoln Reflecting Pool is just the latest episode in a 50-year old problem.

When President Trump accused Democrats of vandalizing his blue-painted Lincoln Recting Pool with algae-blooming chemicals, many Americans laughed. But when the US Park Police later arrested an Olympian bicyclist and several others on flimsy grounds, that laughter turned to more familiar outrage.¹

While a lone Olympian is most certainly not the culprit, Trump's accusations are not without merit. It is absolutely true that chemical additives to the Reflecting Pool water caused the algae bloom. It is a fact of science that nitrogen-rich additives like those in fertilizer or sewage, combined with sunlight and summertime temperatures will cause greening of the water.

My friends, I am afraid the truth is far more sinister than a single Olympian vandal. This columnist has personally witnessed numerous foreign agents unleashing contaminants into the shoreline of the Reflecting Pool and the Constitution Gardens pond just 300 feet away.

And here's the deeply troubling part: those perpetrators are all Canadians. They are Canada geese in fact, but their avain biology should not make the crime any less serious. These unwelcome foreign invaders spread dark green feces along the shoreline causing algae blooms in the water and, staining visitors shoes -- or worse.

In the case of this columnist, those Canadians even stained the backside of his pants as he dared to sit on the ground of the island in Constitution Gardens while wooing his wife many years ago. I leaned the hard way of its more infamous nickname: "Goose Poop Island."

Just 300 feet from the Lincoln Reflecting Pool, that pond's island is home base for the invading Canada Goose population in the area. Ironically, the island and its surrounding pond were landscaped to spruce up the area for the 200th Independence Day celebration for in 1976. The island unintentionally became a home for Canada geese's re-colonization of the area after being hunted to the brink of extinction in the lower 48 states by 1900.

Absent hunters or natural predators, the southern expansion of the range of Canada geese has been relentless. Their vandalism to the pool and pond at the east end of he Mall became a problem long before Trump gave a sole-source multi-million dollar contract to one of his cronies to paint the Lincoln Reflecting Pool blue.

This fact that their actions were not personally directed at Trump should not lessen our outrage. Indeed, our outrage should be heightened because it has been going on for so long. Something must be done.

Unfortunately, all attempts to fix the problem have failed. While Trump's plan to paint our troubles away is certainly the most boneheaded idea to date, it is not the first one to fail.

Back in the Obama Administration, the US Park Service brought in teams of border collies to regularly chase the Canada geese away, claiming they kept the area 100 percent free of geese 95 percent of the time². This worked for awhile, but eventually, the program lapsed. The Canada geese simply flew back and continued their disgusting vandalism.

My fellow Americans, this outrageous state of affairs cannot stand. As laughably ridiculous as the blue paint fiasco has been, we must rise above petty partisanship and come together as Americans to find a new plan that will actually work. We must all agree these Canadians are the true disgusting foreigners that must be evicted once and for all.

Notes:

1. NBC News, At Least 5 People Arrested in Alleged Tampering with Reflecting Pool, Official Says, June 22, 2026

2. CBC, Washington's National Mall Deploys Border Collies to Shoo Pooping Canada Geese, November 28, 2015