Burgum defends cost of fixes to Reflecting Pool: 'It's going to be a small number'

The Interior secretary backs Trump's claims that vandals cut the pool's liner.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Sunday defended President Donald Trump's renovations of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool despite its being plagued by peeling paint and algae, saying it has been a "big success."

Renovations to the Reflecting Pool began in April, and have cost more than $16 million, $4 million more than the original no-bid contract. The Trump administration has repeatedly defended the project that was a made a priority for repairs ahead of the country's 250th anniversary celebration this weekend.

"Well, it's fixed in the sense that it's no longer leaking 45,000 gallons a day. And we've got, you know, less than one-tenth of one percent of that industrial liner that's been damaged. And that's the only thing that remains to go back and fix the damage done by the vandals," Burgum told ABC News' "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday.

Burgum, who is overseeing the project, said that the initial renovation was done for a "fraction of the cost" as past projects, and that additional fixes to the pool's lining will not cost much more.

"I think it's going -- the -- it's going to be a small number because the majority of the work was related to the labor and the materials for the liner. And, of course, the new nanobubbler system, which has taken care of and won the battle against the algae, which is something, you know -- you know, in a -- in a shallow pool, in hot weather, has been -- has been a historic challenge," Burgum said.

"So the Reflecting Pool has been a big success," Burgum added. "And we've got 340 million people in this country that are celebrating 250. We did have a few vandals, but all that's going to be repairable, and that'll all be fixed in the coming weeks as we go forward."

Trump has blamed vandals for ripping a 350-foot gash in the liner at the bottom of the pool, saying that people cut it with a "knife or box-cutter." Burgum backed those claims and said more cameras have been installed at the Reflecting Pool as a result.

"It's multiple gashes that add up to 350 feet across that. And so -- and again, some of this happened early on. There was a -- where we've installed more cameras. I mean we weren't expecting that we were going to have a small group of people that wanted to try to destroy effectively what is part of the Lincoln Memorial."

The Reflecting Pool renovations have been a contentious point with the president's critics, including top House Oversight Committee Democrat Robert Garcia. In June, Garcia sent letters demanding more information from contractors about the project by July 8. In a statement, Garcia called the pool Trump's "latest failed vanity project."

Burgum claimed that the Reflecting Pool, which was temporarily closed for the July Fourth fireworks display on Saturday, is "crystal clear."

Anybody that's there and anybody that was there last week before the fireworks started being installed on either side of the, the Reflecting Pool could see that it was -- the water was crystal clear. So that part's been taken care of. So, again, we are, we are, you know, on to the next thing because this has all been done so well."