Lake Charlotte (Cedar Hill: woodpecker, pollution, trees)

[CptnRn]

Looking at Google maps I noticed a strangely colored body of water on the East side of the bay. Lake Charlotte. What is the reason for its strange grey color? Some kind of pollution or chemical plant?

lake charlotte, houston, tx - Google Maps

[Mom2Feebs]

It looks like, when you zoom in up close, it was taken on an extremely windy day--there are sort of white wisps streaking north that, when panned out, create a gray cast to the coloring of the lake.

I found this on a "Paddling Lake Charlotte" page:

Our last choice is to paddle back out the little pass to Lake Pass and continue on to Lake Charlotte, the largest of the lake trilogy. The pass gets narrower and has lots of trees down. Sometimes we hear and see a pileated woodpecker working the still standing dead trees that are just at the mouth of Lake Charlotte. We work our way through the tight pass and suddenly find ourselves in a much larger lake. This lake often is affected by the wind and can have high waves. I've never seen it so high I couldn't paddle it, even in a canoe but once, a friend and I fought the wind for nearly an hour before making it across to Cedar Hill. This used to be just a little shell bottomed high place and one of the few you could count on for a lunch stop or even a nice, cooling swim in the clear water. Now it is a park , Cedar Hill Park.

Sometimes the colors on Google Maps are not true to life, they can be kinda funny when zoomed out.

[CptnRn]

It certainly is odd that the other bodies of water right next to it are not that color. But thank you for the information, it does not sound polluted from the paddler's perspective.