The Trump administration admitted his planned 250-foot arch near Arlington National Cemetery will harm historic sites but insisted the project move forward.
The National Park Service conceded that the monument would adversely affect the cemetery, the Lincoln Memorial, and several dozen other historic sites, according to a document obtained by the Washington Post. Officials wrote that the "adverse effects cannot be fully avoided," but argued the arch could not be built anywhere else, The Post reported.
"The administration is being very transparent in their overt hostility to public input and the regulatory process and the result will be to permanently disfigure one of the nation's most revered and richly symbolic cultural landscapes," Charles Birnbaum, the founder of the Cultural Landscape Foundation, said in a statement.
Trump wants the arch erected in Memorial Circle, a traffic roundabout near the cemetery, and has said it should stand 250 feet tall to mark the nation's 250th anniversary. The Park Service maintained that the "location at Memorial Circle is central to the undertaking," per the document.
The document is a proposed agreement that the Trump administration wants local preservation officers to sign by Monday, part of a federally required review under the National Historic Preservation Act, The Post reported. Their assent would help clear the way for final approval, which officials hope to seek from a federal review panel as soon as November.
Preservationists pushed back hard. Rebecca Miller, the executive director of the DC Preservation League, wrote in an email shared with The Post that the approach "is not consistent with NPS practice, NPS regulations, or the intent of the National Historic Preservation Act." She urged officials to keep consulting on alternatives.
The Trump administration defended its process. An Interior Department spokesperson said it had fielded more than 100,000 public comments and accepted dozens of consulting organizations, The Post reported. White House spokesman Davis Ingle called the arch "one of the most iconic landmarks" in Washington and the world.