An education and advocacy organization filed a lawsuit seeking to halt the Trump administration’s renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, citing a quirk in the law.
The Cultural Landscape Foundation filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Monday, seeking a preliminary injunction. The group argued that the Department of the Interior hadn’t followed proper procedure in altering the pool, to the extent that it had changed its natural character.
“Shockingly, Defendants started altering the historic character of the Reflecting Pool without following Congressionally mandatory procedures,” the lawsuit reads. “Of particular importance, Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (“NHPA”) requires agencies to engage in a process of consultation before making changes to historic properties. Indeed, Congress passed the NHPA in 1966 to forestall precisely this kind of unconsidered, wanton destruction of historic properties.”
The CLF claimed the renovations were part of a wider pattern of disregarding the law and Congress, connecting it to the more controversial White House ballroom construction.
“No consulting parties have been notified, engaged, or given an opportunity to participate,” it wrote. “This latest desecration of the reflecting pool is part of a pattern—epitomized most notably by the rush to destroy the East Wing of the White [House]—in which this Administration willfully disregards legal limits established by Congress.”
According to the lawsuit, the matter is personal for CLF President Charles Birnbaum. The lawsuit cast Birnbaum as one of the Reflecting Pool’s biggest fans, calling it a “cherished part of his personal life in Washington, D.C.” Since he found “particular solace” in walking around the Reflecting Pool during the COVID-19 pandemic, the group said that it has become “his go-to place for walking, reflecting, and taking respite from the demands of my work.”
Central to the lawsuit’s argument is that the grey coloring was a deliberate choice central to the design of the pool.
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“The grey, achromatic basin is not a utilitarian feature of the Reflecting Pool but a deliberate design choice integral to the pool’s historic character and function,” it wrote.
Work transforming the pool with a blue covering is already well underway, meaning the covering would have to be manually removed if efforts to halt the renovation are carried out.