Vermillion River is located in the southern metropolitan area and is made up of smaller streams (like North Creek, South Creek, and South Branch), the outlet of Lake Marion in Lakeville, and wetlands in New Market and Castle Rock townships. The river runs through wetlands, forest, and agricultural and urban areas before discharging into the Mississippi River. Several portions of the river are designated as trout streams, and the Empire Wastewater Treatment Plant discharged into the river in Empire Township until 2008 when it was diverted to discharge to the Mississippi River. The Elko-New Market Wastewater Treatment Plant was also diverted away from the Vermillion River in 2011.Vermillion River near Empire, River Mile 15.6 and Vermillion River at Farmington, River Mile 20.6 were two of the main monitoring stations in the Council's Large Rivers Conventional Monitoring Project. Monitoring of those stations was discontinued in 2018. The station near Empire measured the water quality downstream from the former Empire Wastewater Treatment Facility, and the station near Farmington measured water quality upstream of the former effluent. Vermillion River near Empire, River Mile 15.6 also had automatic monitoring equipment which took measurements every 15 minutes. This continuous data can be found under the "Time Series" dropdown in the "Data Collected" section located farther down on this webpage.The Vermillion River is currently monitored as part of WOMP, which is the Watershed Outlet Monitoring Program. The Vermillion River below Hwy-61, River Mile 2 is a stream WOMP station that measures the water quality of the Vermillion River just before it flows into the Mississippi River. It is located at the top of Vermillion Falls. This WOMP station also has automatic monitoring equipment which takes measurements every 15 minutes. This continuous data can be found under the "Time Series" dropdown in the "Data Collected" section located farther down on this webpage.