Trump's Reflecting Pool. Minnesota's Supreme Court. The Pool Industry Just Got Interesting.

This week on the Talking Pools Podcast, Rudy breaks down two major stories making waves across the pool industry.

First, a new case before the Minnesota Supreme Court could redefine what happens when homeowners rent out their backyard swimming pools through apps like Swimpley. If a residential pool becomes a commercial business, should it be regulated like a public pool? Rudy explores what that could mean for homeowners, service companies, builders, health departments, insurance carriers, and pool professionals across the country.

Then, the episode shifts to the continuing investigation surrounding the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Following the Independence Day celebrations, crews drained the basin to begin inspecting the widely discussed coating failure. Rudy separates documented facts from speculation and explains why engineering investigations require evidence—not opinions.

Drawing on more than three decades of troubleshooting complex pool failures, Rudy examines the publicly available documentation, discusses coating systems, adhesion failures, ASTM testing standards, moisture considerations, recoat windows, and why forensic analysis—not politics—will ultimately determine what happened.

If you're tired of hot takes and looking for a technical, evidence-based discussion, this episode delivers exactly that.

In This Episode

•  Minnesota Supreme Court hears the Swimpley backyard pool case 
•  When does a residential swimming pool become a public pool? 
•  Operational challenges for pool service professionals 
•  The future of pool-sharing platforms 
•  Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool investigation update 
•  Why the pool was drained after Independence Day 
•  Separating documented facts from online speculation 
•  Understanding coating systems and polyurea applications 
•  Adhesive vs. cohesive vs. substrate failures 
•  ASTM adhesion and moisture testing standards 
•  Why recoat windows matter 
•  Surface preparation and concrete moisture considerations 
•  Green water, algae, and what it does—and doesn't—prove 
•  Why investigations begin by eliminating theories, not proving them 
•  Lessons the entire pool industry can learn from a high-profile failure 

Key Takeaway

Good investigations don't begin with conclusions. They begin with evidence.

Whether it's a backyard pool operating as a business or one of America's most recognizable reflecting pools, the same principles apply: collect the facts, test the evidence, challenge assumptions, and let the data tell the story.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

The Minnesota Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could determine whether homeowners who rent out their backyard swimming pools through apps like Swimpley should legally be treated as public pool. If you've never heard of Swimpley, think Airbnb. Except instead of renting a house, you're renting somebody's backyard pool by the hour. Sounds simple enough, until the lawyers show up. The case, known as Hitner v. Minnesota Department of Health, started after the Minnesota Department of Health issued guidance saying that once a homeowner starts charging the public to use a residential swimming pool, that pool may no longer qualify as a private residential pool under state law. Instead, it could fall under the state's public pool regulation, and that's where things get interesting. Public pools don't just have bigger water bills, they often have licensing requirements, regular inspections, water quality standards, record keeping, and in some cases, physical construction requirements that many backyard pools were never designed to meet. Now, before everybody jumps into the comments, this isn't about whether Swimpley is good or bad. It's about something much bigger. Can a state agency interpret an existing law to include these rentals? Or does the legislature have to change the law first? That's one of the questions now headed before the Minnesota Supreme Court from a pool professional's perspective? This case raises some really interesting questions. If a residential pool suddenly starts seeing dozens of paying guests every week, is it still being used like a residential pool? Does increased bather load change maintenance requirements? Should service contracts change? Should insurance change? Should water testing become more frequent? Should the equipment be expected to wear out faster? Those aren't political questions. Those are operational questions. They're the kinds of questions service companies may have to answer long before lawmakers do. And don't assume this only affects Minnesota. Pool sharing platforms continue to grow across the country, and regulators in several states have already begun looking at whether privately owned pools used for commercial purposes should be regulated differently than traditional residential pools. Whatever the Minnesota Supreme Court ultimately decides could influence how other states approach the same issue. We'll be following this one closely because the decision could affect homeowners, pool professionals, health departments, builders, and just about anyone doing business in the backyard pool industry. As always, we'll follow the evidence, read the opinion, and leave the hot takes to everybody else.

SPEAKER_06 2:30

Oh my god, bro.

unknown 2:32

Hell no, man.

SPEAKER_06 2:33

What the fuck, man?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

I thought I'd bring up a subject of interest. I do a lot of this as president and try and save money. And one was the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which everybody knows. That's where Martin Luther King made his great speech, and where others have likewise made great speeches and great events held there.

SPEAKER_04 3:08

Welcome to Friday. Here we are once again, weekend eve, 4th of July in the rear view mirror moving forward. Next step. There is so much going on in the world today, but everybody wants to talk about the fucking reflection pool in front of the Lincoln Monument because somehow that's more important than war. So anyway, I plan just to do a fact dump right now. I just want to talk to you about the facts. Dump it right out there. You develop your own opinions, you tell me what you think. That's what I want to talk about. Now let's call this an engineering investigation. I still need evidence. I've spent more than 35 years troubleshooting pools, and pools do not tell you the truth right away. They fuck with you first. The thing you see is usually the symptom, not the cause. Green water is a symptom. Delamination is a symptom. A tricked breaker, a failed seal, a mystery stain, a pump acting possessed by Satan's raccoon. Symptoms. Something made it happen. And if you start fixing what you see before you understand why it happened, congratulations. You just bought yourself an expensive lesson and maybe a second one for dessert. So let's separate this thing into four buckets documented facts, observable evidence, engineering, and working theories. Not conclusions, theories. A theory is the best explanation that fits the evidence today. Tomorrow, new evidence may punch it in the face. Good. That's how investigations are supposed to work. The reflecting pool opened in 1922. It's nearly 2,000 feet long, holds roughly 6.7 million gallons, and sits between the two landmarks. Every tourist with a phone and a dream recognizes. Most people see a giant rectangle of water. Pool people see math. Roughly 50 million pounds of water sitting on reclaimed wetlands. A bog, basically. Gorgeous place for a monument. Not exactly where I choose to park. 50 million pounds of water for a century and hope everything behaves. And over the decades it didn't. Over the decades, the basin settled, concrete aged, soil shifted, and water did what water does. It found weak spots and punished shortcuts. Around 2010, the pool went through a major rehab with structural stabilization, foundation support, and upgraded systems. This wasn't a guy with a roller and a can-do attitude. It was real civil engineering, the kind nobody notices when it works because the structure simply keeps doing its job. Fast forward to the recent work. According to the National Park Service, the basin was drained, a tinted polyuria liner was installed to waterproof and protect the concrete, and the pool was refilled. On paper, not weird. Polyuria and protective coatings are used in tanks, reservoirs, industrial basins, wastewater plants, and other places where concrete spends its life getting bullied by water. Concrete is tough, but it is not immortal. Then people noticed two things. The water turned green. And blue sheets of coating appeared on the surface. Green water in a 6.7 million gallon outdoor basin fed by natural inputs is not Bigfoot. That's biology. The floating coating, though, that got my attention because coating failures tell stories if you know how to read them. Almost immediately the theory started flying. Vandalism, peroxide, algae, bad workmanship, product failure, politics. Then NPS reported vandalism. Foam sealant cut with a sharp object. Roughly 70 fence post caps thrown into the pool and destruction of the laminating material. Those are documented facts. What those facts do not prove by themselves is what caused the coating to delaminate. That's the part an investigation has to answer. So before we blame anyone, we need to understand what was installed. This was not paint. It was an engineered coating system, concrete primer, polyuria, and protective finish with different layers, different jobs. If something failed, the first real question is not who do we hate today, it's which layer failed and how. Adhesive failure, cohesive failure, and substrate failure can all look similar from a distance. But under testing, they tell completely different stories.

SPEAKER_03 7:36

God bless the pool proof God bless the pool property. That's that slam. Get gone. Whoa, whoa, wait a minute there. Real pros don't slam, you feel me?

SPEAKER_02 9:55

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SPEAKER_04 10:47

Alright, I interrupt myself here to bring you breaking news. The 4th of July celebrations are over, the fireworks have faded, the crowds are gone. Now, the real investigation begins. As promised, crews began draining the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool on July 5th so they could inspect the failed coating. This is the first real opportunity for investigators to examine the damage without speculation getting in the way. For the past couple of weeks, the internet has been overflowing with opinions. Some people declared vandalism was the cause. Others insisted it had to be bad product. Still, others somehow managed to turn a full coating failure into a political argument. Here's where I stand. I still don't know what caused the condition to fail. Neither does anyone else outside the investigation. The National Park Service documented acts of vandalism, that's a fact. National Park Service also documented delaminating coating material. That's another fact. What has never been publicly established is whether one caused the other. Those are two very different questions. Now that the pool is being drained, investigators finally have the opportunity to answer the questions that may actually matter. Did the coating lose adhesion to the substrate? If it did, was it adhesive failure? Cohesive failure? Or did the concrete itself fail? Was the surface prepared correctly? Were concrete moisture levels within specification? Were dew point conditions acceptable during installation? Was the required concrete surface profile achieved? Were the manufacturer's recoat windows followed? Those aren't political questions. They're coating failure questions. From everything I've reviewed so far, I still believe one possible explanation deserves serious consideration. An exceeded re-coat window somewhere during the investigation process. Notice what I said. Possible, not proven, if portions of the project were primed or waterproofed and then coated outside the manufacturer's allowable recode interval without the required surface preparation, that can absolutely result in adhesion problems. It's a well-known failure mechanism in industrial coatings. Do I know that's what happened? No. Does the publicly available evidence prove it? No. But based on the information currently available, I believe it remains one of several technically reasonable hypotheses that investigators should either confirm or eliminate. That's how investigations work. You don't start with a conclusion and hunt for evidence to support it. You gather the evidence first and let it tell the story. Over the coming days, I'll be watching for inspection photographs, contractor reports, coding evaluations, adhesion testing, and any documentation released from the repair effort. Those documents will tell us far more than social media ever will. Until then, I'm sticking with the same advice I've given from day one. Slow down. Read the documents. Follow the evidence. Question your own assumptions. And don't confuse confidence with proof. Flip straight to the horror file. The weird installs, the absurd finds, the stuff only pool pros ever see. Then I'd go back and read the articles. Service Industry News is a twice-monthly trade publication for pool and spa service text, 24 issues a year, emailed free to over 10,000 texts and available on their app. Every issue covers nationwide industry news and real technical content you actually will use. Get your free subscription at Service Industry News.net. Even today, Wednesday the 8th, I was on the phone with forensic reporters from the Washington Post, reviewing time-lapse video footage of the reflecting pool throughout the renovation. It's a video, so you do the best you can. I was able to see when codings were applied and the time frames for recodes. At this point, I want to take away everything except for the facts. Because a lot of the brilliant people looking at this are the brilliant people that are listening to this, listening to me right now. And I would like your thoughts on it. And the only way that happens is if we're all on the same page and we all have the same information. So I do want to make sure you have everything that I have and nothing that is theory, nothing that I think is happening. I want to just list for you right now everything I'm about to say is supported by official documents, manufacturer literature, or other public published sources. So the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is approximately 2,000 feet long. It contains roughly 6.7 million gallons of water. The basin underwent a major structural rehabilitation around 2010 to 2012, including stabilization with deep foundation supports and reconstruction of the basin. Jump forward to the 2026 renovation, the National Park Service drained the reflecting pool during the 2026 rehabilitation. A tinted polyuria coating system was installed to waterproof and protect the concrete basin. The pool was subsequently refilled and reopened before Independence Day activities. According to the National Park Service, foam sealant was reportedly cut with a sharp object. Approximately 70 fence post caps were thrown into the reflecting pool. The laminating coating material was damaged. The pool was scheduled to be drained after Independence Day for inspection and repairs. According to Rhino, that's the manufacturer of the coatings, according to Rhino's documentation, Rhino 406 epoxy serves as the epoxy bonding priming layer. The blue visible layer is Pioneer Pipeliner 5000 polyuria. Rhino specifies that the next spray applied, elastomer, should be applied one hour and within 24 hours of the Rhino 406 epoxy application. Rhino has publicly indicated that the waterproofing membrane reportedly remains functional. The visible issue involves the upper blue protective coating. Now, these that we're about to go through are things that are public and have come directly from photographs and videos of the location. So the water became visibly green, the green coloration developed after reopening. Floating algae was visible. Large blue flexible sheets are floating in the water. Portions of the blue coating have detached from the substrate. The detached material appears flexible rather than brittle. Delamination is not uniform throughout the basin. Numerous failures appear to occur where the wall transitions into the floor. Several failures appear associated with coating overlap or transition areas. Now, a few established principles independent of this investigation. The polyuria coatings are widely used in industrial containment and waterproofing. Polyuria performance depends heavily on proper surface preparation. Moisture within concrete can interfere with coating adhesion. Dew point conditions during installation can affect bond quality. Temperature, humidity, film thickness, spray technique, and mix ratio all influence coating performance. Coating failures may occur at the concrete interface between coating layers within the coating itself. These failure modes require different forensic conclusions. Adhesion failures cannot be identified from photographs alone. ASTM D4541 and ASTM D7234 are recognized pull-off adhesion test standards. ASTM F2170 and ASTM F1869 are recognized concrete moisture testing standards. Green water alone does not identify a cause. Outdoor bodies of water commonly experience algal blooms. In fact, this same body of water, if you go back year after year after year, I don't know if there is a year in our recent history or in the history of us that this thing has not gone green during the summer. I'm not gonna say every single year, but a lot of them, it's gone green. Green water does not prove chemical sabotage. Green water does not prove maintenance failure. Green water does not identify coating failure. Green water and coating failure may represent separate issues. So now I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about some facts that have not yet been released. No public records have seen these. But what about the pull-off adhesion test results? Where are those? Where is the core sample analysis? Microscopic coating analysis. We'd like to see that. Cross-sectional failure analysis, concrete moisture test results would be great to get a hold of. Daily installation logs, ambient weather logs during application, surface profile measurements, coating thickness measurements, holiday testing, exact installation sequencing, exact dates each coating section was applied, independent forensic laboratory findings, and how about just the friggin' water test results? So some of those things remain hypotheses or allegations rather than established facts. And I wanted to try to stay away from that, but here we go. Vandalism caused widespread coating failure. Hydrogen peroxide caused coating delamination. Ozone caused coating delamination. Product failure by itself caused the delamination. Improper installation caused the delamination. A mist recoat window caused the delamination. Excess concrete moisture caused the delamination. Poor surface preparation caused the delamination. Political decisions caused the coating failure. Fertilizer was intentionally introduced into the pool. The algae bloom directly caused the coating failure. None of those have been publicly demonstrated through forensic testing. So here are things, here are a few things that I've consistently identified that I think deserve investigation, but are not yet established facts. The apparent concentration of failures near wall-to-floor transitions warrants mapping and investigation. The visible failure pattern appears more localized than random. The reported integrity of the waterproofing layer may indicate the failure is limited to the upper protective layer. And Rhino backs that up, saying that the epoxy coating is still intact. In fact, the Rhino technical data sheets identify a 24-hour recode window that investigators should compare against the actual installation records. Any hypothesis regarding intercoat adhesion, missed recoat windows, surface preparation, or environmental conditions cannot be confirmed without destructive testing and forensic analysis. I know a lot of folks want to say that the president's motorcade driving across the reflection pool that had just been painted caused damage. But I would like to point out to you, because I have seen other footage, and I can tell you that the folks that are renovating this pool that are applying the coating drove their vehicles all across it as well. I don't know if they drove it across before the president's motorcade or after. But what I'm trying to tell you is you don't have all the Facts. None of us do. I think that covered pretty much everything that I've at least found so far. If you have any questions on that or anything or any insight, hit me up. I want to know, right? We can solve this together. Talkingpools at gmail.com.

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SPEAKER_09 23:37

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SPEAKER_01 24:12

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SPEAKER_04 24:16

The epoxy primer referenced in the public documents matters because primer is not decorative fluff. Its job is to make the concrete and the next coating layer grab each other instead of acting like two strangers trapped in an elevator. The technical data sheet reportedly calls for elastomer to be applied after one hour and within 24 hours of applying the epoxy. That window matters. Coatings change when they cure. Wait too long, skip surface prep, ignore moisture, temperature, humidity, dew point mixed ratio, spray technique or film thickness, and the best product on earth can still go completely sideways. That does not mean the product failed. It does not mean the contractor failed. It does not mean vandalism did or didn't matter. It means coatings are brutally unforgiving, and the investigation needs to determine where the system separated, what the concrete condition was, whether moisture testing was done, whether application conditions stayed within spec, and whether the failure patterns point to workmanship, substrate, chemistry, physical damage, or some miserable combination platter. Now, the green water, the algae identified publicly was Esmodesmus, a common freshwater green algae, grows in ponds and lakes and reservoirs, water features, and slow-moving fresh water when the conditions cooperate. The reflecting pool has sunlight, river water, birds, pollen, dust, organic debris, storm input, and millions and millions of visitors. Nature's trying to repossess that thing 24 hours a day. Maintenance, basically standing there yelling, not today, you photosynthetic fucker. Phosphates are nutrients, not witchcraft. Algae uses them. Could fertilizer or some other nutrient source have been introduced? But changing six million gallons takes quantity, intent, and evidence. Bird crap, leaves, organic debris, and runoff are boring explanations. But boring explanations are often the ones standing there holding the wrench. Filtration also matters. I still haven't seen a public document that clearly lays out the full treatment system. That matters because filtration is not just about making water pretty for Instagram. It removes dead algae, dust, leaves, pollen, and organic junk before it breaks down and becomes tomorrow's nutrient buffet. If the system lacks conventional filtration, that changes the long-term algae conversation. Ozone is useful, but man, it is not a magic lightsaber. It oxidizes contaminants, it helps water quality, but it does not leave a lasting residual like chlorine. Hydrogen peroxide is also an oxidizer and should be evaluated. But if peroxide alone caused the coating failure, I'd expect the damage pattern to make chemical sense. Public photos appear more localized, damn thing. It just means the question stays open until testing shuts it up. Vandalism is real because NPS documented it. But documenting vandalism is not the same as proving vandalism caused the broader coding separation. Polyuria is tough as hell, but anything can be damaged if somebody is determined enough and holding the wrong tool. The question is whether the vandalism explains the pattern, not whether vandalism makes a convenient headline. If someone handed me this investigation tomorrow, I would not start with a microphone. I would start at the pool, map every failure, map every section still bonded, photograph everything, measure everything, study the transitions, especially wall to floor areas, if that's where the public images keep pointing, then test, pull off adhesion, core samples, film thickness, microscopic cross sections, and lab analysis, determine whether the coating failed adhesively, cohesively, or because the substrate let go. That's that's how evidence works. It's annoying, slow, it's not sexy, which is why it's useful. I'd want installation logs, daily reports, batch numbers, weather records, temperature, humidity, dew point, surface preparation records, moisture testing, and repair documentation. I'd want independent forensic evaluation by qualified codings experts, not somebody with a dog in the fight. ASTM D4541, ASTM D7234, and other appropriate methods exist for a reason. They turn expensive arguments into actual information. And yeah, people keep trying to drag this into politics. The president didn't hold the spray gun. He didn't calculate dew point. He did not run adhesion tests or decide whether the concrete was dry enough. Procurement and oversight are legitimate public policy conversations. They are not the same thing as determining why a coding separated. Where do I stand? Same place I started. We have documented facts, observable facts, unanswered questions, and an investigation that's still moving. I have observations, I have places I dig first, I have theories I try to kill with data, but those are not conclusions. They try to prove themselves wrong. And if the theory survives, maybe, maybe you're getting close. Water is undefeated. It finds every weak joint, every crack, every shortcut, every mistake somebody thought no one would ever notice. It does not care how famous the pool is. It does not care who is yelling online. Our job is to shut up long enough to listen to the evidence. So yeah, the reflecting pool turned green. Yep, coding material separated. Yes, vandalism happened. Those facts can coexist without automatically explaining one another. The grown-up work is figuring out what connects, what doesn't, and what the industry can learn before the next expensive lesson shows up wearing a fake mustache. Here's the thing, this isn't really about one reflecting pool, it's about how we figure out why things fail. Because if all we're trying to do is decide who to blame, we're probably going to miss the lesson. I've spent more than 35 years troubleshooting swimming pools, residential pools, commercial pools, water parks, competition pools, therapy pools. If there's one thing I've learned, it's this. Water is an honest witness. People lie, rumors spread, politics gets loud, the internet loses its damn mind. Water just keeps doing what physics and chemistry tell it to do. When I walk up to a failure, I don't start by trying to prove my favorite theory. I start trying to kill it. Seriously, I want my first theory to be wrong because every time I eliminate something that doesn't fit the evidence, I get one step closer to what actually happened. That's how good investigations work. Every pull-off test, every core sample, every moisture reading, every weather log, every microscopic examination doesn't prove somebody right. It eliminates possibilities. Eventually, there aren't many left. That's why I keep talking about ASTM standards, adhesion testing, moisture testing, recode windows, and forensic analysis. Not because I'm trying to impress anybody, because those are the tools that separate evidence from opinion. Could my leading theory be wrong? Absolutely. And if the evidence proves it's wrong, I'll be the first one to say so. I don't need my theory to win. I need the evidence to win. Because this isn't just about the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool. The next lesson learned here could prevent the same thing from happening on another public project, another water treatment plant, another reservoir, another municipal pool, or maybe even somebody's backyard. That's why this matters. Not because it's political, not because it's famous, because every expensive failure has something to teach us if we're willing to shut up long enough to listen. That's all I got for you today. I'm Rudy Stenkowitz. This is the Talking Pools Podcast. Until next time Be good. Be safe.