I can’t believe I am still writing about this, But I also believe it as well. The reflecting pool has become such an unmitigated disaster because rush jobs never work out well unless they are very preplanned. The New York Times and other media outlets have finally broken their silence on the pool and they are only now saying what I said back in MAY about this.

The contractor said the pool’s new blue liner peeled and tore because of “human oversight” and a flawed plan that involved layering two incompatible chemicals, documents show.

I don’t even know what to say here. The whole world yelled out that even had a level of high school chemistry or watched this old house to know that the reflecting pool was going to be a disaster!

Because of “human oversight,” workers in some areas did not spray enough of the primer that made the layers of the liner stick together, Atlantic said in the documents. But the bigger problem, the company said, was that the repair plan laid out in the contract called for the layers of liner to include two chemicals that turned out to be incompatible.

This is a masterclass in bullshit. The company that has sprayed these liners in sewers and other things suddenly wakes up and goes “oh wait we had two incompatible chemicals”? This is a case of passing the buck on them not wanting to just admit when you try to apply chemicals to concrete that has been wet for 50+ years just doesn’t work well.

The chemical on top reached a temperature hotter than what the compound underneath could withstand, and the heat caused the bottom layer to blister and come loose, the documents show. The contractor said it had not expected that outcome because it was very uncommon to mix the two products in that way.

Back in May when they were laying this down I called out nearly the exact failure method! So again they pushed this to a no bid process, Let these people do this. If I were VASpray , I would be in a straight up panic and preparing for every city manager to come down on them like a bag of anvils because when you have a failure like this you just failed loud enough for the whole world to hear.

From Coffeecommander:
Executing an unbonded polymer application over a concrete base less than 48 hours after drainage bypasses the mandatory 30-to-90-day capillary dry-out phase. Under direct solar radiation, the surface temperature of the dense polymer sheet escalates to over 140°F (60°C). This heat conducts into the top micro-layers of the concrete, transforming the trapped sub-surface moisture into water vapor.

Because the gas is trapped beneath a non-permeable vapor barrier, it expands geometrically. This expansion generates localized upward hydrostatic vapor pressures exceeding 150 psi. Given that the tensile strength of standard unreinforced concrete sits between 300–400 psi, the combination of internal vapor pressure and the massive mismatch in thermal expansion coefficients (α_concrete ≈ 10 × 10⁻⁶/K vs. α_polyurea ≈ 100 × 10⁻⁶/K) creates extreme internal shear strain. This forces systemic subsurface delamination and structural concrete spalling. The mathematical probability of structural matrix failure within a 12-to-24 month environmental cycle is 100%.

The sad factor is the internal departments are still pressing on the story that vandals did this. Unfortunately, the fix is going to cost at least 5 to 10 times the original cost, and the end factor is its going to be expensive and likely hazmat by the end of this.

As I sip my coffee I guess some people will learn from this. I hope… Honestly here, the blame game needs to stop and the companies involved should take a step back and work for a fix worthy of the US. My recommendation here is CALL IN THE ARMY COE!

Attributions from:
Coffeecommander.net – Follow up Part II to Whitepaper 8 Reflecting pool failure nodes.
Coffeecommander.net – Followup to: White Paper #8 CIVIC INFRASTRUCTURE & HYDROLOGICAL ASSET CONSERVATION
Coffeecommander.net – White Paper #8 CIVIC INFRASTRUCTURE & HYDROLOGICAL ASSET CONSERVATION
New York Times – Contractor Blames Its Own Repairs, Not Vandals, for Reflecting Pool Failure