US Park Police arrested a man for vandalizing the Washington Monument on Tuesday night.

After being temporarily closed this morning, the area around the monument is back open as the National Park Service’s conservators work to restore it.

Photos of the monument taken Tuesday night show the base splattered with red latex paint. Next to the paint splatter, someone also painted a message in red. It reads: “Have you been fucked by this,” with an arrow, likely referring to the monument, followed by “gov says tough shit.”

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Park Police arrested Shaun Ray Deaton of Indiana last night at 7:30 p.m., and charged him with trespassing, vandalism, and tampering.

Architectural conservators began work at 5 a.m. Wednesday, power washing and scrubbing the side of the monument with soft bristle brushes, as well as treating it with chemicals and paint remover to remove the paint. As Mike Litterst, public affairs specialist with the National Park Service, which oversees the National Mall, put it Wednesday morning, conservators will “rinse it off, evaluate, and repeat as long as it takes.”

Litterst said their initial work removed the latex, “but what’s more difficult is the pigment, which seeped into the marble. Marble is a very porous stone, so it takes longer to do those treatments.” He estimates it will take multiple days — “maybe a week” — to fully remove the pigment.

Conservators faced a similar cleanup job back in 2013, when green paint was splattered at the Lincoln Memorial, the National Cathedral, and other statues around town. A woman was arrested in connection the the Lincoln Memorial paint vandalism and was suspected of defacement elsewhere, but the charge against her was later dismissed.

“It’s always unfortunate anytime we have an incident like this, and they happen more often than we’d like,” Litterst said Wednesday. “Memorials are here as a testament to great American leaders and veterans. … We’re fortunate we have an in-house group of conservators who can hit it quickly and restore it to its original luster.”