"Scientific detective work" with chemicals

Approximately 25,000 different chemical substances are currently used regularly in Canadian industries, for everything from gas, paint and pesticides to cosmetics and food. Each one of these substances has its own characteristics and its own particular impact on the environment, and determining just how each breaks down, moves through the environment, accumulates and breaks down is becoming an increasingly important issue. To compound the problem, Environment Canada lacks the resources to adequately assess them all.

When the Canadian Environmental Modelling Centre was established in 1995 with the appointment of Dr. Don Mackay as its director, its mission was to address this concern by developing models which could give a complete account of the fate of such substances.

"Scientific detective work" is how Mackay describes the complicated process of first finding out where each is coming from, how it concentrates in the environment, then developing computer programs (mass balance modeling) that can be used to evaluate a large number of different chemicals.

After the programs are developed, Mackay and his research assistants conduct extensive tests to ensure each does, indeed, do what it was designed to do. Then, after they pass the process of validation, the mass balance models are added to the Centre's Web site where anyone interested in the fate and effect of chemicals can download them, gratis. There are 20 models currently available, and the site is drawing considerable interest from academics, governments, industries and consultants throughout the world. Mackay says they receive an average of 10 hits each day, and constantly attend to a variety of different queries and comments.

Funded by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council (nserc) and a consortium of approximately 12 industrial companies, the Centre also provides employment and research opportunities for Trent students.

Working on "real world problems," Mackay notes, gives students a way to put what they've learned into practice. And because the Centre is in constant contact with industries as well as various government departments and other university consultants (they collaborate with Environment Canada, Fisheries and Oceans and the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, for example, on projects relating to local and world-wide water resources), students make valuable connections that can lead to future employment.

Trent's Modelling Centre received the Kenneth Mellanby award in November, 2000, for work on bioaccumulation. It is through this process, by ingestion through food or absorption through water, that organisms such as fish accumulate large quantities of chemicals from their environment or surroundings.

A list of recent publications made by the Centre is available through their Web site, and Mackay and his associates welcome inquiries from others who share their interest in the fate and effects of chemicals - and their commitment to the management of these chemicals through the use of "sound science."

The Trent University Environmental Modelling Centre Web site is www.trentu.ca /envmodel. It can also be reached by phone: 705-748-1005 or by fax: 705-748-1080.