Construction on President Donald Trump’s new Washington, D.C. golf course is yet to begin, but it is already beginning to sink—literally.
The president’s newest pet project at Hains Point is under threat from the Potomac River, which causes regular flooding and previously shuttered an outdoor pool, experts tell Mother Jones.
“Let’s be honest,” said Rebecca Miller, executive director of the D.C. Preservation League. “The island is sinking.”
Trump, 80, earlier announced that work on the East Potomac Golf Links would begin on Sept. 1 even as the project faces legal challenges from the D.C. Preservation League and local golfers.
Studies have found that the artificial island has sunk at least five feet since it was created in the 1800s. The water level around it has also risen more than two feet, a likely result of climate change. Trump seized the golf course this year as part of his manhandling of publicly owned American landmarks.
Ed Stierli, an executive at the National Parks Conservation Association, said that when he first saw initial renderings of Trump’s planned golf course, “One of the first questions I had was: Are they completely ignoring the landscape here?”
In order to carry out Trump’s plan, Stierli said, “They would also have to address the seawall.”
“Unfortunately, what’s moving forward here is almost a replica of the type of thinking we’re seeing with the Reflecting Pool: An administration ignoring climate, ignoring science, ignoring the Park Service’s own plans,” he told Mother Jones.
Stierli said that Trump is just “charging ahead, completely detached from the reality of this site and its landscape.”
Peter Feldman, a hydrologist, said putting a golf course in the East Potomac “would seem to be a poor idea generally.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Locals have organized themselves into groups like Save East Po, which seeks to “keep East Potomac Park public, accessible, and affordable.”
Alex Rosen, a member of the group, said he fears that “they will dig a bunch of plumbing, they will move a ton of earth, and they will make a bunch of changes before realizing ‘oh, the water table here is actually pretty high.’”
If that happens, Rosen predicts the Trump administration will simply “throw their hands up and say ‘Oops, our bad.’”
