Vermilion River (Vermilionville Watershed Exhibit)

The river here runs both ways. A pumping station near Krotz Springs can move up to 1,040 cubic feet of fresh water a second into the Vermilion, the work of the Teche-Vermilion Freshwater Project of 1976 to 1982. The gauge at Surrey Street shows the swing. Its highest downstream flow, 6,280 cubic feet per second, came on July 17, 1989. On August 13, 2016, during the floods, the flow ran backward at 11,300. Runoff from Lafayette raises the water levels to the south, and floodwater drains toward the Bayou Tortue swamp through two coulees.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Vermilionville — steps away
  A living-history village of about 23 acres on Bayou Vermilion in Lafayette, opened in 1990 to interpret the Native peoples, Acadians, Creoles and people of African descent of the Attakapas region.
• Cypress Island Preserve at Lake Martin — 5.8 mi
  Nearly 10,000 acres of bottomland hardwood and cypress-tupelo swamp at the south end of Lake Martin, owned by The Nature Conservancy, with a boardwalk and a rookery of egrets, spoonbills and alligators.
• Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site — 12 mi
  A bayou-side state site on former Attakapas hunting ground, with a raised Creole cottage of about 1815, a reproduction 1800 farmstead and its slave quarters, and the story behind Longfellow's Evangeline.
• St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church — 12 mi
  The Mother Church of the Acadians, founded in 1765 on St. Martin Square in St. Martinville, with a late 1870s Lourdes grotto and, a block away, the Evangeline Oak on Bayou Teche.

More markers nearby

• Coussan House (La Maison Coussan) — steps away
• Beau Bassin House (La Maison Beau Bassin) — steps away
• School House (L'école) — steps away
• Mouton Kitchen (La Cuisine de Maison Mouton) — steps away