Editor’s Note:
The following interview was reconstructed from public records, press conferences, and congressional testimony following the Great Reflecting Pool Fiasco of 2026.
People often ask me whether Skyler Fusaro is a real person.
The answer is both simple and complicated. Skyler is a fictional character, but the questions she asks, the fears she confronts, and the hopes she expresses are very real. She lives in Atlanta, writing to us during the 2060s and 2070s about a world that emerged from the choices we are making today.
I first imagined Skyler as a way to step outside the relentless urgency of the present. Every day we are flooded with breaking news, political conflict, climate disasters, technological disruption, and endless arguments about what is happening and who is to blame. It is difficult to see where any of it is leading. Skyler gives me a way to look back at our time from the future and ask a different question: What will matter fifty years from now? Skyler has appeared in my blog writing since early 2011, and continues to this day. Although my blog writing is non-fiction, Skyler allows me to use fiction as a way to imagine, and reflect on our world of today and what it might become.
Known for her sharp questioning, dry wit, and reliance on evidence rather than ideology, Fusaro approaches public controversies much like a science teacher approaches a classroom experiment: What happened? What evidence supports the claim? What conclusions can reasonably be drawn from the facts?
In the following interview, Fusaro investigates the Reflecting Pool algae fiasco, asking whether millions of dollars were spent solving a problem that basic environmental science could have predicted—and whether accountability disappeared beneath the green water.
So, here is a fictional interview in which Skyler interviews President Trump and John J. Cafaro, CEO of the company that painted the pool American flag blue.
Participants
Skyler Fusaro: Independent journalist, and historian from the 2070s. Frequent guest on the Mud Creek Chronicles.
President Trump: President of the United States
John J. Cafaro: Principal of Greenwater Services, the company awarded the $16 million Reflecting Pool contract
The Interview
Fusaro: Mr. President, before spending $16 million repainting the Reflecting Pool, did anyone ask what would happen if a dark surface absorbed more heat from the sun?
Trump: It was beautiful paint. It is American flag blue. The best paint. Everybody said so. Tremendous paint. Nobody thought there would be a problem.
Fusaro: Nobody?
Trump: Well, maybe some people. But they weren’t important people. What did they know.
Fusaro: Were any scientists consulted?
Trump: We had experts.
Fusaro: Experts in aquatic ecology?
Trump: Experts in contracts.
Fusaro: Mr. Cafaro, your company painted the pool dark blue. Did anyone on your team evaluate how increased heat absorption might affect water temperature?
Cafaro: Our responsibility was the project we were awarded. We were asked to paint the pool blue, and to improve the filtration system. We delivered exactly what the contract required.
Fusaro: So no?
Cafaro: We fulfilled the specifications.
Fusaro: That sounds remarkably like “no.”
Cafaro: We met every requirement.
Fusaro: Including creating a giant algae incubator?
Cafaro: That’s an unfair characterization.
Fusaro: Is it? The sequence seems straightforward. Dark paint absorbs more sunlight. The water warms. Algae reproduce rapidly. The pool turns green.
Cafaro: Ecosystems are complex.
Fusaro: Yet sixth-grade science students routinely predict that warm water promotes algae growth. Perhaps someone should have reviewed a school biology textbook or consulted a local high school science department before the renovation.
Cafaro: Again, ecosystems are complex.
Fusaro: Is complexity now another word for accountability?
Trump: Look, the pool looked fantastic.
Fusaro: For how long?
Trump: A while.
Fusaro: Before it turned green?
Trump: The media exaggerated the green.
Fusaro: The photographs appear to disagree. I don’t think the photographs are exaggerated. Look at this one:
Trump: It was also caused by vandals.
Fusaro: Vandals?
Trump: They did it. They were caught.
Fusaro: Public records show no evidence supporting that claim, and no confirmed arrests connected to the algae bloom.
Fusaro: After the bloom appeared, crews were filmed pouring hydrogen peroxide into a 6.75-million-gallon pool.
Trump: We acted quickly.
Fusaro: Quickly and effectively are not necessarily the same thing.
Trump: We used advanced technology.
Fusaro: You mean the nanobubblers?
Trump: Very advanced. Incredible technology.
Fusaro: If the underlying problem was warmer water, wouldn’t killing algae merely postpone the next bloom?
Trump: That’s a negative question.
Fusaro: No. It’s a biological question.
Cafaro: The cleanup was not our responsibility.
Fusaro: Yet the conditions that required cleanup originated with the renovation.
Cafaro: Correlation does not imply causation.
Fusaro: True. But heat, temperature, and algae growth have been linked by scientific evidence for generations.
Cafaro: There are many variables.
Fusaro: Did any of those variables include common sense?
Trump: You’re making too much of this.
Fusaro: I don’t think do. A national monument became a case study in unintended consequences.
Trump: We solved it.
Fusaro: According to many experts, you haven’t.
Trump: We cleared the water.
Fusaro: A doctor who repeatedly treats a fever while ignoring the infection has not solved the problem.
Fusaro: Mr. Cafaro, another question. How did Greenwater Services receive the contract without a competitive bidding process?
Cafaro: The government selected our company. They contacted us and asked us to write a brief proposal to paint the pool and check out the filtration system.
Fusaro: Critics noted that you had contributed more than $350,000 to President Trump’s campaigns and that you were a neighbor of the President near Mar-a-Lago. Did either fact influence the award?
Cafaro: Absolutely not.
Fusaro: Then greater transparency would seem to benefit everyone involved.
Cafaro: The contract complied with all applicable procedures.
Fusaro: That answer may satisfy lawyers. It does not necessarily satisfy historians.
Cafaro: With respect, hindsight is easy.
Fusaro: Fair point. Let me ask a different question.
If three middle-school students placed identical algae samples into bowls of water at 12°C, 22°C, and 30°C and observed faster growth in the warmest bowl, what conclusion would they reach?
Cafaro: That warmer water promotes algae growth.
Fusaro: Excellent.
Now suppose someone painted the bottom of a shallow pool a dark color that absorbed more solar energy.
What would happen?
Cafaro: The water might become warmer.
Fusaro: And warmer water would promote what?
Cafaro: Algae growth.
Fusaro: Thank you. The sixth graders have successfully completed the investigation.
Closing Statement
As the interview concluded, neither the President nor the contractor appeared eager to discuss algae, temperature, elementary ecology, or the circumstances surrounding the contract award. Both preferred to celebrate the renovation and the subsequent cleanup.
The reflecting pool is still rto this day full of green algae. Despite the Interior Dept.’s claim that it is crystal clear, CNN found the Reflecting Pool water to be green with peeling paint, not “crystal clear.”
Yet the lesson endured long after the green water disappeared.
The Reflecting Pool controversy was never really about paint. It was about a recurring feature of public life: the tendency to spend millions of dollars solving problems that a science teacher could have predicted for free, while leaving uncomfortable questions about procurement and political connections unanswered.
It is also about democratic backsliding primarily through the concentration of power vested in the president. He says there are no limits on his power. He makes decisions that no one counters or questions. This episode is just one event that we have seen happen within the Capitol: destruction of the East wing, construction of the “cage” to host a bloody fight on the White House lawn, the war in Iran.
In the years that followed, the incident became a favorite case study in environmental science classrooms. Students examined the evidence, reviewed the data, and reached a conclusion that seemed obvious.
Nature is not impressed by budgets.
Sunlight, heat, water, and algae obey the laws of ecology, whether or not government officials have read the textbook.
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