A $1.7 million no-bid contract awarded to a company owned by J.J. Cafaro to install a water-purification system for the iconic Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is the source of controversy, but the businessman said he isn’t surprised.
Cafaro, a close friend of and political donor to President Donald Trump, said Friday that the technology used by Greenwater Services, a Brookfield business that he owns through the J.J. Cafaro Investment Trust, did what it’s supposed to do. It flushed out the algae that was in the pool’s underground pipes for years, which ended up in the reflecting pool – turning the water green – and is being removed, he said.
Cafaro of Liberty, a two-time felon, said of the national attention the pool’s discoloration is attracting is “nothing. It is people who don’t seem to like Trump. I have no idea why this is an issue. I don’t pay much attention to it. The system is working. We weren’t hired to clean the pool, but to sell them permanent equipment to clean it forever. It turned green because the technology worked. It killed the algae in the pipes.”
Cafaro’s Greenwater Services lived up to its name as the water in the reflecting pool is green.
Trump ordered a repainting project of the reflecting pool on the National Mall and to turn the water “American flag blue” ahead of the nation’s 250th birthday celebration. That project cost $14.7 million. A large algae bloom in the shallow pool turned much of it green.
Cafaro said when he first learned about the water-purification contract, he asked the National Park Service to open it up to competitive bidding.
“There is no one else in the world that does what we do,” Cafaro said. “We told the parks department to bid it and after trying to, they said, ‘No one else does what you do, so we can’t bid it.’”
The National Park Service wrote in a public filing that several companies were interested in the purification system for the reflecting pool, but in April, it gave the job to Greenwater, citing an exemption meant for urgent situations, according to an article in The New York Times. That urgent situation was that the system had to be installed in time for events celebrating the nation’s semiquincentennial, according to the newspaper.
Cafaro said Trump, who has been his neighbor for years in Palm Beach, Florida, had nothing to do with Greenwater, also known as Green Water Solutions, getting the contract.
Cafaro said of Trump: “He is my friend and he doesn’t know a thing about it. I would never talk to him about it. I’d never put him in that position. No deal is worth it to me. He’s a friend and you don’t do things to put friends in awkward positions.”
Greenwater Services registered in Ohio on Oct. 2, 2024, and filed for trade name recognition on May 27, 2025.
Cafaro said he was approached about three years ago by the developer of the technology, which uses “ozone-infused nanobubbles” to purify water.
Cafaro said: “The technology was tested by Ohio State and Florida State and has a patent. We don’t have any real competition.”
While the business is owned by J.J. Cafaro Investment Trust, which is led by Cafaro, he said he doesn’t hold a position in the company and he doesn’t know how much he owns of Greenwater.
Cafaro said: “I’m nothing officially in the company. They all work for me, but it has its own CEO and COO. I have so many different entities that I can’t keep track of them. That’s what the attorneys and the accountants are for.”
Cafaro said the reflecting pool turned green because his company’s technology worked as the “ozone-infused nanobubbles” were put into the underground pipes that had algae build-up for years.
“The algae came out (into the pool) and you had shallow, hot water and a lot of sun. Algae grew like weeds because algae is a weed. The technology kills the algae and then you’ve got to sweep it up. The dead algae is being cleaned up. The media hasn’t given it enough time.”
A $14.7 million no-bid contract was awarded to Atlantic Industrial Coatings of New Canton, Virginia, to spread blue waterproofing material on the pool’s concrete floor, with portions of it subsequently detaching and floating to the pool’s surface.
Cafaro said his company’s technology successfully killed bacteria in Tijuana River sewage overflows in 2025. The company was paid $1.08 million by the federal government for that project.
In a Dec. 19 news release, the U.S. Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission said the “small pilot project” shows “that ozone nanobubble technology has the capability to kill bacteria and eliminate odors associated with sewage.” The pilot project was from Sept. 9 to Oct. 15.
The release states: “While demonstrating the effectiveness of the technology, USIBWC learned that significant equipment design modifications would be required for an effective scale-up and larger application in the Tijuana River or other similar river systems that exhibit troublesome, unpredictable flow conditions.”
The executive summary states during the “abbreviated operational period,” 10 samples of the downstream samples, less than five yards away, showed a 91.5% reduction in total coliform bacteria and an 83.8% reduction in E. coli bacteria.
CAFARO HISTORY
Cafaro made his fortune through his family-owned Cafaro Co., a retail development company that operates numerous shopping malls and plazas. The business was started in 1949 by Cafaro’s father, William, and his uncle, John.
Cafaro spent several years as vice president of the company before leaving years ago. He operates several businesses out of Brookfield under J.J. Cafaro Investment Trust.
Cafaro pleaded guilty in 2002 in federal court to conspiracy to commit bribery, a felony. Cafaro was sentenced to 15 months of probation and fined $150,000.
Cafaro admitted he provided nearly $27,000 in repairs to then-U.S. Rep. James A Traficant Jr.’s house boat and later bought the boat in exchange for the congressman using his influence to lobby the Federal Aviation Administration to certify aircraft laser-guidance technology for U.S. Aerospace Group, a company Cafaro owned.
As part of his plea agreement, Cafaro testified against Traficant, who was found guilty on all 10 felony counts he faced, including racketeering and bribery, though some jurors said after the trial that Cafaro wasn’t a credible witness.
In 2010, Cafaro pleaded guilty to a felony count of making a materially false statement to the government by concealing a $10,000 loan he gave to B.J. Schuerger, who was the campaign manager for the unsuccessful 2004 congressional campaign of Cafaro’s daughter, Capri. The loan was never repaid.
Cafaro was sentenced to three years of probation and fined $250,000. Before sentencing, a federal judge ordered Cafaro to spend three days in jail when he wasn’t satisfied with the businessman’s initial disclosure of financial information.
Cafaro has been politically active for decades. He initially gave most of his money to Democrats and for the past decade-plus, almost exclusively to Republicans on the federal, state and local levels.
Cafaro donated about $350,000 to Trump-affiliated political committees. Cafaro has frequently attended exclusive events for Trump, and co-sponsored the Trumbull County Lincoln Day dinner on April 15 with Vivek Ramaswamy, the GOP nominee for governor, as the keynote speaker.
In 2016, Cafaro gave $50,000 to a Trump event when the then-presidential candidate boycotted a Republican debate.
At that event, Trump thanked Cafaro, calling him “a man who made a lot of money in Cleveland, does a good job, and a fantastic man. J.J., thank you.”
In 2021, Youngstown State University renamed the Lincoln Building as J.J. and Janet Cafaro Hall after the family donated $1.75 million to the school.
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