Atchafalaya River

Mile 27.1 - LBD Point Coupee/Bayou Latenache Pumping Station

John Ruskey

20 Apr 2026

27.1 LBD Point Coupee/Bayou Latenache Pumping Station

Three miles above Melville, as you paddle along, you might notice a large bay of water left bank descending just past mile 27. This is the Point Coupee Drainage Structure, which controls the outflow of Bayou Latenache. When the Morganza Floodway was built there was a drainage problem. All of the water above the floodway had nowhere to go. So in 1954 the Corps built a Pumping Station to lift water over the Atchafalaya Levee to drain all of the rural lands north of the Floodway in between the Atchafalaya and the Mississippi. A small sandbar forms at the north end of the bay mouth that would make a small but good camp or picnic in low water.

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