The $1.7 million “ozone nanobubbler” being used in an effort to make the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool water crystal clear has a unique ability to shoot 500 million microscopic bubbles into every teaspoon of water. The injected oxygen is supposed to oxidize — or, unscientifically speaking, smash through — algae, bacteria and other chemicals.

The Trump administration has touted the technology as “state of the art.” At the onset of the project, the administration dispatched a small company based in Brookfield, Ohio — one of the only in the country with this type of technology — to lead the high-profile, high-stakes gambit to see whether the technology could work on the 6.5 million-gallon landmark that for decades has evaded cleanliness. Only five years old, the technology has never been formally used or researched on a pool.

As questions mount over President Donald Trump’s broader renovation project — which has been overcome by other problems, including a peeling bottom and allegations of vandalism — Greenwater Services, the company in charge of the pool’s water quality, has been thrust into the national spotlight. The company has recently taken on a crisis communications firm to help manage the unfamiliar political waters while it attempts to focus on the pool’s actual water.

Chas Antinone, president and chief operating officer, had a one-word answer for CNN when asked whether the company’s part of the project had gone according to plan: “Yes.”

“I’ve got no political affiliation in this thing whatsoever either way. And I don’t really care about that part,” Antinone said. “Our job was to come here and bring a technology that we think can keep the Reflecting Pool looking clean and reflect the way it is supposed to.”

A review of campaign finance reports, both federal and in Ohio, showed no contributions made by Antinone.

But the company and its no-bid contract have been dragged into a political morass as algae returned for a time to the pool, Trump campaign donations by the owner have come to light, and the pool has become a symbol of America’s divide and what some see as the president’s failures.

And questions remain about whether the new technology will work long term, with no timeline set by the Department of Interior for the more extensive repairs to decades-old pipes that are necessary to keep the technology running.

Joe Trusty, who is the editor of Pool Magazine and has a background in pool service and construction, said the nanobubbler has been “a tremendous buzzword around our industry.”

“It’s not surprising to me that they were brought into the conversation, nor is it surprising to me that they implemented it,” he said. “Whether or not it is going to be able to be effective in as large a body of water and as shallow a body of water such as the Reflecting Pool remains to be seen.”

Greenwater Services walked CNN through a detailed timeline of its work with the Trump administration. That accounting revealed that some accommodations were needed to meet the president’s demands to have the pool refurbished by the July Fourth celebrations marking America’s 250th birthday.

From the get-go, the company had to be nimble.

The permanent ozone nannobubbler unit had not yet been fully fabricated in Ohio for the job, and yet the pool was being refilled with water. So, the company brought in temporary equipment to get the system running before the permanent structure was finished.

Four stand-alone mobile machines, which could be seen with the naked eye, were put in the Reflecting Pool on June 6, two days after the pool was refilled with water. The units, which work differently from the permanent ones, made small white plumes of bubbles as nozzles shot nanobubbles into the water. The company said the four machines were operating at the same amount of power that the permanent system would have had.

At that point the water was clear; everything was working well, a spokesperson said.

However, on June 12, a source close to the project said the company was asked by the National Park Service to remove the temporary structures. They were not given a reason. The four units were taken offline and off-site by the company. The algae bloom appeared, according to a person close to the project and video images of the pool captured that afternoon by a CNN camera.

Greenwater Services would not comment on the time gap when the temporary systems were removed. The Interior Department and White House did not respond to CNN’s questions about why the call was made to take the machines out of the water. The New York Times first reported on the removal of the temporary systems.

During that 24-hour period, the Trump administration hosted a high-profile Ultimate Fighting Championship photo op on the National Mall.

The next day, the company reinstalled the temporary machines.

As the four temporary units continued to run, the permanent unit arrived on June 16 and installation began. On June 25, the temporary units were removed, and the permanent system began operating on its own, according to the company.

“What I think everyone learned is that when the system is allowed to run, it cleans the water and keeps it clean,” Erin Kramer, a spokesperson for the company, told CNN.

The permanent ozone nanobubbler technology, unlike the temporary units, is not in the Reflecting Pool itself. The technology is instead housed in a small pump house, in the US Park Police stables just off the Reflecting Pool.

CNN exclusively obtained photos of last week’s installation of the technology in the pump house with the National Park Service, showing the high-tech system that is typically kept behind closed doors.

The water, which the Interior Department confirmed is pulled from municipal water, comes in and is filtered again. This is when Greenwater Service’s technology steps in.

An oxygen concentrator pulls air in and then sends an electrical current that breaks up that O2 into pure oxygen molecules to form “ozone.” That ozone is then injected into the master water pipe, through a series of patented nozzles with pressure.

That master pipe splits into numerous preexisting smaller pipes that run around the exterior of the Reflecting Pool, providing inputs for water to enter.

The Interior Department has previously noted the need to repair and potentially replace thousands of feet of pipes that have been in disrepair for several years.

The ozone nanobubbler relies on at least some of the pipes being viable.

Antinone said a number of the pipes are viable but was unsure how many are up and running. It is his understanding that the National Park Service intends to test to see which ones are working, he said.

The Interior Department has not responded to multiple questions about the status of the pipes and the plan for broader repair.

Antinone said the piping system would be one of the first things to look at should the algae return.

The ozone nanobubbler technology is very new, but industry experts say it is promising.

Heather Raymond, the water quality director for the Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, has tested and researched Greenwater Service’s technology for years.

One of the key factors that make it so powerful, Raymond said, is the ability for the ozone in the powerful algae-busting bubbles to stay in the water, reacting with the water, potentially for days.

Previous versions of the technology injected the bubbles into water, where they would then rise to the surface, losing power and effectiveness.

Raymond said the new technology carries a powerful “one-two punch” because it creates a microsystem for battling bacteria that is more biologically active.

“In addition to directly oxidizing the chemicals, they promote the growth of these bacteria that eat the chemicals.”

Raymond said her studies show an effectiveness rate in the 90th percentile for the ozone nanobubbler, recognizing it as both clean and green.

Raymond was not involved in the Reflecting Pool project and said her studies have not been funded by Greenwater Services.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has done independent research on the technology. In research published in 2020, the federal agency said the technology effectively remediates harmful algal blooms.

Greenwater Services has never used its technology on a pool, only for projects in waterways, such as the Tijuana River, Ohio’s Lake Newport and Florida’s Port Mayaca.

Raymond said, ideally, the nanobubbler technology could work best by getting ahead of any algae, when installed during cooler months, not during the summer when the conditions for algae — heat and sunlight — are prime.

“If you had all the time in the world, you should launch this fall or winter,” she said.

But the company was under a tight deadline to make the pool clear by July.

Greenwater Services attempted to portray the timeline, and the warm, muggy DC weather they were up against as a positive.

“If we had put this in here and there’s no algae, we wouldn’t have learned anything,” Antinone said. “The whole goal here is to make the process better, so every time we do something, we should learn a little bit.”

Like Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the company enlisted to resurface the pool bottom with a blue material, Greenwater Services was allowed to bypass a competitive-bidding process that is typically done for government contracts. Greenwater was awarded a no-bid contract in April.

The company’s co-owner, J.J. Cafaro, is a longtime supporter and donor to Trump and lives near his Mar-a-Lago club in South Florida. Cafaro pleaded guilty in 2001 to conspiracy to bribe Rep. James Traficant Jr., an Ohio Democrat.

“The White House was not involved in the selection process for any contract and did not weigh in on the companies selected. Full stop,” an Interior Department spokesperson said in a statement. “These companies were selected because they had the expertise, workforce and materials needed to complete such a huge project in the timeline required to celebrate our nation’s 250th.”

The White House said in a statement that it “did not play any role in the selection process.”

Greenwater Services has sought to distance Cafaro from its daily operations.

“He is an Ohio-based businessman who invested in the Ohio-based company after the owners showed him research done on local Ohio bodies of water,” a spokesperson said. “He has no involvement in the day-to-day operations.”

CNN reached out to Cafaro but did not receive an immediate response.

Earlier this month, Cafaro defended his company’s technology to a local Ohio newspaper, the Vindicator, saying that he believes the system is working and that much of the public scrutiny over the Reflecting Pool is from “people who don’t seem to like Trump.”

Cafaro told the newspaper he would “never” talk to the president about his company’s work with the Reflecting Pool.

“You don’t do things to put friends in awkward positions,” he was quoted as saying.

Employees of Greenwater Solutions have been at the pool on a near daily basis since early June. They anticipate remaining through the July Fourth holiday, at least. The company tests the water daily, Antinone said.

The next step is to give time to see how the permanent machine operates on its own.

CNN spoke to the company on Friday, just one day after it went online without the support of the temporary units.

“I will tell you, the water today continues to look good, and we’ll continue to test it and see how that works,” Antinone said.

If algae and the green-hued water returns, Antinone said the company has the capability to bring in more units to the pump house to amp up the system. Additionally, he suggested there are many other options for mitigation. Some spot treatments — potentially with temporary machines — could also be used, he said.

“We think right now, we treated it — it looks good,” he said Friday while adding, “but you know, it’s going to be 100 degrees next week.”

Three firefighters have died and two others have been injured Saturday while they tackled blazes on the Colorado-Utah border, the U.S. Wildland Fire Service has announced. The agency said the crew members had been part of an interagency response to the Knowles and Gore fires.

“The U.S. Wildland Fire Service stands united with the USDA Forest Service in grief and in our unwavering support for the loved ones left behind,” the service said in a statement on Facebook. “Their bravery, dedication, and sacrifice will never be forgotten.”

In a press release, the Department of the Interior said that the five firefighters were involved in a “burnover incident”, which refers to when officials are unable to find an escape route, so have to shelter as best they can while a fire passes directly over them. The department said the two firefighters who survived were being treated for burn injuries.

Fires in Utah, Colorado and Arizona have been intensifying, thanks to days of low humidity, high temperatures and strong winds. The conditions have pushed fire behavior to extremes not commonly seen in the region, stretching resources and forcing the governors of both Utah and Colorado to declare emergencies.

Cottonwood fire not yet contained

The biggest blaze is the Cottonwood Fire, burning in rugged terrain in southern Utah’s Beaver County, which has grown to more than 144 square miles and remains entirely uncontained. It is currently the largest wildfire burning anywhere in the United States.

It has already severely damaged the Eagle Point ski resort and destroyed summer cabins. Damage assessments were underway Saturday, though no final estimates of destroyed structures were yet available.

On Saturday, hundreds of residents in the towns of Marysvale, Junction and Circleville were placed on notice to leave as conditions worsened.

Also burning is the Snyder Fire, covering more than 28,000 acres. It began as the Snyder Mesa Fire on Saturday in east Utah’s Grand County, but later combined with the smaller Jones and Knowles Fires in Colorado.

Alyssa Mason, a spokesperson assigned to the Cottonwood Fire, told NPR that crews this weekend had been dealing with single-digit humidity and wind gusts of around 45 miles per hour, on top of fuel moisture readings between 2 and 8 percent.

Rep. Julia Letlow won the Republican primary runoff for Senate in Louisiana, NBC News projects, defeating state Treasurer John Fleming in another victory for President Donald Trump’s slate of preferred candidates.

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Trump endorsed Letlow early in the race, which went to a runoff after none of the GOP candidates won a majority of the initial primary vote on May 16. Trump waded into the state in an effort to oust GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

See live runoff results here

Letlow was the top vote-getter in the first-round primary, winning 45%, followed by Fleming at 28%. Cassidy won just 25% and did not qualify for the runoff.

Letlow will be in a strong position to win in November in the solidly Republican state, which Trump carried by 22 points in 2024. Democrat Jamie Davis, a farmer, easily won the Democratic Senate nomination Saturday night.

Letlow has pledged to be a strong supporter of the president’s policies.

“I promise you this: When I get to the United States Senate, I will never back down from fighting for your America First agenda,” Letlow told the president during a telerally with Trump on Thursday night.

Letlow framed the race as the choice between “a real conservative fighter in the Senate, or whether we are going to send another career politician who does not want to save our country.” She touted her support for eliminating the Senate filibuster to help pass the Save America Act, a Trump-backed measure to overhaul U.S. election laws.

Fleming also tried to make the case that he was the staunchest Trump ally in the race, taking aim at Letlow’s past support for diversity, equity and inclusion policies and foreign aid. Letlow told NBC News earlier this year that she reversed her position on DEI when she “saw it for what it was” and has since been “fighting against it.”

But Trump’s backing helped boost Letlow, who also had help on the airwaves from allied super PAC.

She also touted endorsements from other top Louisiana Republicans, led by Gov. Jeff Landry. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Rep. Clay Higgins also backed Letlow.

Letlow is expected to join the Senate after serving nearly three terms in the House, where she also served on the powerful Appropriations Committee. She first came to Congress in 2021 after winning a special election following the death of her late husband. Luke Letlow, a former congressional aide who won a House election in 2020, died of Covid before he was sworn into office.