Bayou Teche added to National Water Trails System

The Bayou Teche, which begins in Port Barre and continues south for 135 miles until it joins the Atchafalaya River near Berwick, has been added to the National Water Trails System, a first for Louisiana. “We just found out that it has been accepted. We are so excited,” said Conni Castille, executive director of the TECHE Project, which has been working for years to restore the bayou to its former glory. “Designation as a national water trail places the Teche in an elite group of rivers across the nation and will increase recreational tourism for the visitors to the 15 communities and four parishes the river runs through,” Castille said. The National Water Trails System, part of the U.S. Department of Interior’s National Parks Service program, is a network of “exemplary water trails that are cooperatively supported and sustained.”...more