The cost estimate went from $1.8 million to costing over $15 million.
The no-bid contract was given to a company with no previous experience.
Having companies that know how to do the work bid against each other would be the normal way to award a contract.
Trump's Reflecting Pool contract went from $1.8M to nearly $15M. We fact-check the cost claims, procurement rules, and what's still left undone
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The cost trajectory
The cost record is documented across public federal contracting databases and is not in serious factual dispute. Trump publicly stated the project would cost approximately $1.8 million (or, in some statements, $1.5 million). The initial contract value was $6.9 million — already more than triple that figure, and awarded before Trump made his public cost claim (NBC News, 2026; ABC News, 2026). On May 9, the Interior Department increased the contract by $6.2 million, bringing the total for Atlantic Industrial Coatings to $13.1 million (Fahrenthold, 2026b). When combined with the Greenwater Services contract for the filtration upgrade ($1.74 million), the total renovation expenditure was nearing $15 million as of mid-May 2026, according to federal contract records reviewed by ABC News (2026). The New York Times also reported that the Interior Department’s own internal estimates anticipated the cost could exceed $12 million, and that officials predicted the repairs would hold up for seven to ten years — not the fifty years Trump claimed (Fahrenthold, 2026a).
