Bayou History
The Bayou Vermilion is a consequent stream, or tidal river. This means that the Bayou Vermilion was formed from the bottom up.
The bayou began its life in the Vermilion Bay. Tides and other natural actions in the Vermilion Bay slowly eroded away the marshes and other features of the landscape as the embryonic river crept northward. This process brought the channel as far north as Lafayette.
Much later, a distributary of Bayou Teche made its way south and eventually linked up with this consequent stream. This union formed a permanent north-south flowing bayou.
The Bayou vermilion is still influenced by the tides of the Vermilion Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. In fact during times of heavy rain, parts of the Bayou vermilion still flow north!
At one time the Red River flowed through what is now the Bayou Teche. The Bayou Vermilion was then, and still is today, a distributary of this Red/Teche channel. The sediments that gave the Red River its name probably gave the Bayou Vermilion its name as well.
Eventually Bayou Teche, by way of Courdableu, became a distributary of the Atchafalaya River. After the disasterous flood of 1927, theAtchafalaya Basin Floodway System was created to relieve pressure on the Mississippi River. Levees built to create the floodway inadvertently cut off the flow of fresh water to the Bayou Teche and the Bayou Vermilion.
The lack of fresh water from the Atchafalaya, coupled with the industrial and urban economic growth in the Vermilion-Teche Watershed, meant that the Bayou Teche and the Bayou Vermilion were fast becoming stagnant, polluted waterways in desperate need of a regular flushing.
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