^ Lake Charles was always sort of foul. Granted, not as foul as it is at present, but the water has always smelled bad, it's always been scummy and it's alway been a mosquito hatchery, at least since I started visiting the park in the early '80s. Remember, there used to be a ride called
Diamond Falls that was actually
in Lake Charles, and I was regularly drenched with that terrible water.
Two of the reasons that LC is so nasty is because it's shallow and because it's drained all the time (or at least it used to be), so it's never been allowed to develop into anything more than a big puddle. I believe that deepening it and turning it into a real ecosystem and habitat would do a lot to clean it up. Stocking it with certain fish and wildlife would reduce the mosquitos as well.