OV9

In Greek mythology, Narcissus was ultimately defeated by a reflection pool….

dinny_g wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2026 1:31 pm Has he tried:

"It's not going exactly to plan because Sleepy Joe didn't keep up with the maintenance so we're now going to have to rip it all out and do it again because... you know... Obama"

The whole problem apparently started because Trump decided to switch off the water supply from the Potomac that Obama’s administration approved and move it back onto the city mains.

They didn’t drain the pumps properly so the river water (algae) mixed with the mains water which has phosphates to stop lead from pipes leaching into the water.

Algae eats phosphates, big old algae bloom.

Adding bleach to turn it into a toxic soup and dumping it back into the river is the cherry on top.

Wait, what?!

They used bleach to kill the algae?!

Yeah, just after they first started having algae problems they dumped gallons of ammonia into the pool (some are saying that’s what caused the new paint to start peeling).

When that didn’t work they just started pumping the “water” into a storm drain.

Shit looks like original Monster

It's like they're wilfully doing the dumbest things

Just on average, every now and then, they should (accidentally) end up doing something sensible?

ZedLeg wrote: Sat Jun 27, 2026 12:43 pm Adding bleach to turn it into a toxic soup and dumping it back into the river is the cherry on top.

They used hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) which decays quite quickly to water & oxygen. It’s not very dangerous.

Household bleach however is a different thing - sodium hypochlorite, and that’s quite nasty.

ZedLeg wrote: Sat Jun 27, 2026 12:52 pm …they dumped gallons of ammonia into the pool…

And ammonia is a different thing again, NH3.

I guess that’s almost good news in context

Astonishingly, out of all of this, using hydrogen peroxide to address the algae was the one singular competent thing they have done ! Literally everything else….. not so much.

To be fair, a few men pouring some gallon jugs of 12% hydrogen peroxide into a 6.5 million gallon pond probably didn’t make much difference…

If he uses what I use for the duck pond they would need 9840 litres to treat it.

The issue is then removing the algae as the treatment makes it clump when it does so it's easier to remove.

Dave!

it’s pretty clear that it’s just not adhered properly - wrong product applied wrongly. I expect the whole lot will have to come up.