By Wendy Rasmussen
Held in Edmonton, Alberta, from May 9-11. Rebecca Smith and I attended the 46th Annual WCTOW. The meeting is a place where scientists can meet and present their work, and to learn about new challenges, applications, and methods.
We have attended this workshop in the last couple of years so that we could support our distributor in Canada, Chromatographic Specialties, but also to meet and get to know our current and future customers in western Canada.
Some highlights included the measurement of antibiotics excreted by cattle and how antibiotics in manure spread on the ground as fertilizer can ultimately run off into the drinking water. Another interesting topic, especially for Alberta, is the question of identification of napthenic acids in water and soil to determine whether is naturally occurring or whether it is due to environmental contamination by oil refineries.
After the meeting, we had to good fortune to visit a few laboratories in Edmonton and Calgary.
