The Ohio company helping to remove the gooey, green algae that has bedeviled Washington D.C.’s Reflecting Pool wishes that science, not politics, was being discussed.
“I just want to set up a table here for people to ask questions about algae,” said Erin Kramer, spokesperson for Greenwater Services, headquartered in Trumbull County, whose $1.7 million contract with the U.S. Department of the Interior to purify the water has become a political flashpoint.
Kramer has been working with the company’s technicians at the iconic pool where earlier this year a patented ozone-infusion technology was installed to purify the water using “NanoBubble Ozone Technology.” The process removes some impurities without chemicals, its only by-product is oxygen, according to the company.
Kramer has taken a variety of questions from the public. But, she said, “No one wants to talk about the science.”
That’s due to the other part of the story. Politics.
Specifically no-bid contracts for Greenwater’s work and its owner’s friendship and political contributions to President Donald Trump. That contributor, John J. Cafaro, is also a convicted felon in Ohio and part owner of Greenwater. He now lives near Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate and private club in Florida.
While the algae is Greenwater’s problem, a new coat of thick paint, touted by Trump as “American-flag blue,” is also peeling off in sections between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial.
Fixing the pool before July Fourth celebrations begin has already cost taxpayers about $16 million.
Who is John Cafaro?
A recent New York Times story first made the connection between the pool, Cafaro, a 24-year-old Ohio bribery scandal and contributions to Trump.
In 2002, a federal judge sentenced Cafaro to probation and fined him $150,000, after he was convicted of bribing former Democratic U.S. Rep. James Traficant, according to Dispatch reporting at the time.
Separately, in June 2010, Cafaro pleaded guilty to a charge related to an illegal campaign contribution made to his daughter, Capri Cafaro, during her 2004 run for Congress.
Capri Cafaro served in the Ohio State Senate as a Democrat from 2007 to 2016. When asked by The Dispatch about her family’s political or personal connections to Trump, she said “I’m not involved in any of my father’s business activities.” She currently works in telehealth at a mental health counseling business in Cincinnati.
In 2016, John Cafaro donated $50,000 to Trump for an alternative televised fundraiser to a Republican debate which Trump boycotted, according to The New York Times. At the event, Trump praised Cafaro as a “fantastic man” who “made a lot of money in Cleveland [and] does a good job.”
Since then, Cafaro has given more than $300,000 to political committees connected to Trump along with several others in Ohio. This includes more than $7,000 since 2025 to Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, who is running for Ohio governor, according to campaign finance records
Attempts by The Dispatch to reach Cafaro were not returned, but Cafaro told the Tribune Chronicle in Warren, Ohio, that the national attention to the pool and his company is “nothing.”
“It is people who don’t seem to like Trump. I have no idea why this is an issue. I don’t pay much attention to it. The system is working. We weren’t hired to clean the pool, but to sell them permanent equipment to clean it forever. It turned green because the technology worked. It killed the algae in the pipes,” Cafaro said.
“He is my friend, and he doesn’t know a thing about it. I would never talk to him about it,” Cafaro said of Trump. “I’d never put him in that position. No deal is worth it to me. He’s a friend, and you don’t do things to put friends in awkward positions.”
Greenwater is distancing itself from Cafaro, calling him an investor “who was not involved in the day-to-day operations … not involved in the contract discussions,” with the administration.
Meanwhile, jokes about draining the swamp and the pool reflecting the administration’s agenda have been rampant online and on late-night shows. And Trump on June 22 claimed, without evidence, that vandals caused the problems, cutting a “350-foot slit” length-wise in the newly laid pool lining, using a “box-cutter or a knife of some kind.”
Clear water, finally. But will it now be drained?
As of early morning, June 23, Kramer told The Dispatch that the technology is working, referring to a video she took from the pool of a technician holding a bottle with clear water.
But the questions linger. And most of them not about the science.
“We’ve shown the water to at least a dozen (news) reporters here,” she said. “They look at it, and they are amazed by it. And they don’t include it in any of their reporting.”
Dead algae is being removed by park rangers, evidence of the ozone’s nano-bubbles working she said.
“The water in the reflecting pool is clear, and what remains is sediment from algae that has been remediated and is settling to the bottom. That is part of the natural treatment cycle,” Chas Antinone, Greenwater Services President and Chief Operating Officer told The Dispatch in an emailed statement.
The sediment would be reabsorbed as nutrients in rivers and streams. But not as easily in a manufactured pool.
“In a built pool, the cleaning process is different, and separate from our treatment work. Greenwater’s job is to safely and sustainably remediate algae,” Antinone said. “Our technology is being deployed in waterways in Ohio and across the country, in collaboration with multiple research universities and environmental agencies.”
What we know about Trump’s other no-bid contract for the Reflecting Pool
The other company, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, received a $14.2 million contract to cover the bottom of the pool a dark navy hue of “American Flag Blue.”
The Trump administration awarded both ontracts through a no-bid process, citing the sense of urgency as the nation’s 250th birthday approached.
The contract to work on the reflecting pool is through September 30, according to federal contract data, as reported by the New York Times.
Greenwater Services’ other federal contracts
Greenwater Services previously received another $1 million federal contract from an international boundary and water commission to do a pilot study on the effectiveness of the company’s water purification technology on treating sewage and microorganisms in the Tijuana River.
The project showed that the ozone nanobubble technology “has the capability to kill bacteria and eliminate odors” from sewage, according to a December 2025 press release from the commission. However, “significant equipment design modifications” would be needed for the technology to be effective in the Tijuana River and other similar rivers.
Kramer declined to answer questions about the next steps, including Cafaro’s ongoing direction of Greenwater and related political implications.
Dispatch reporter Anna Lynn Winfrey and USA TODAY contributed to this report.
Growth and development reporter Dean Narciso can be reached at dnarciso@dispatch.com.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio company tied to Reflecting Pool algae saga defends work
Reporting by Dean Narciso, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Dean Narciso, Columbus Dispatch | USA TODAY Network
