WASHINGTON DC — The International Union of Painters and Allied Trades has warned that workers renovating the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool in Washington may be risking their safety as contractors race to finish the project before the United States' 250th anniversary celebrations. The pool was drained and fenced off so contractors could upgrade it by July 4.

Last month, the Trump administration awarded a no-bid contract to Atlantic Industrial Coatings to waterproof and repaint the pool. President Donald Trump told journalists that the company had successfully carried out work on a swimming pool at his golf club in Sterling, Virginia, and he ordered the firm to repaint the pool's floor "American flag blue." Trump initially told journalists that the contract would cost $1.8 million; the actual cost was $13.1 million. He later denied that he had ever used Atlantic Industrial Coatings and said he was not involved in awarding the contract.

According to official databases, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which describes itself on its website as a "woman-owned advanced coatings application company," has never previously been awarded a federal government contract. The federal government can award contracts without competitive bidding only when it determines that competition would cause serious injury to the government.

Herbert Zaldivar, business development director of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, said companies that do similar work were indignant at being denied the chance to compete. "I'm here to verify if the company is in compliance and following the right guidelines. It's very rare that a job like this, which is a publicly funded contract, doesn't go to a competitive bid. This didn't go through the right processes, so we lost the chance for a union-affiliated contractor to be part of the competition," he said.

Zaldivar also said he was concerned for the safety of workers, who had been unwilling to speak with him. "They are afraid to touch the subject, although I will continue to come and try to have conversations with workers. With this project, they are trying to rush on a timescale that is most likely to leave some liability with the contractor. The chemicals are hazardous," he said.

Al Havinga, a retired civil servant at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, voiced fears about air pollution from coating materials being used in the renovation. "All this stuff is volatile. People are breathing in poisonous chemicals. There's no consideration to the risk to the public in applying this stuff," Havinga said.

Officials at the Department of the Interior are dissatisfied with Atlantic Industrial Coatings' work, with staff complaining of bubbles and small holes appearing in a layer meant to waterproof the pool and varying shades of blue on the floor due to uneven application of tinted waterproofing. Internal documents also raised concerns that a May 22 deadline for the work might be missed.

The 2,000-foot reflecting pool, dug in 1922, sits between the Lincoln and George Washington memorial monuments and was the site of Martin Luther King's 1963 "I have a dream" speech. Leaks and algae blooms have for decades caused the pool's water to turn green and undermined previous government-commissioned repair schemes, including one commissioned by the Obama administration.