![]() From then on, leRoux was the driving force behind increasing the lab’s annual budget: “My justification is in-house testing saves money sending out samples costs money.” She convinced the county to purchase a Barnstead deionized water system (Thermo Fisher Scientific) producing 200 L/day of high-quality water. “This was far too little, and the water had high conductivity,” leRoux says. The lab’s outdated equipment included a small distillation unit producing 12 to 15 liters per day. Working both jobs enabled leRoux to salvage Oxford’s BOD bottles, desiccator cabinets and jars, and Imhoff settling cones destined for the trash and transport them to her new lab. ![]() “Its minuscule budget precluded any 20th-century equipment,” says leRoux. ![]() A private laboratory processed the remainder. On her first day at the West Brunswick lab, leRoux was stunned to see scant instrumentation on which her predecessor ran only five analytical parameters. “I worked two hours in the morning at Oxford, then until 4 o’clock at the plant, and finished the rest of a long day at Oxford,” leRoux says. Donald Dixon, wastewater superintendent, asked leRoux to start in the lab while finishing her last two weeks at Oxford. In September 2008, the West Brunswick lab unexpectedly lost its supervisor. Today, the lab serves three water reclamation facilities, four wastewater treatment facilities, and two water treatment plants. To stay in the Wilmington area, leRoux took the position of wastewater laboratory supervisor at the West Brunswick plant. Four years later, she was the laboratory supervisor when the business was sold and the new owners consolidated operations in Raleigh. Her opportunity arose when local Oxford Laboratories hired her as a chemist in September 2004. “I was based in Wilmington, loved the city, and wanted to stay,” leRoux says. leRoux mustered out at the end of her five-year tour, having found a new career path. Eventually, she did check water samples for oil and grease and photograph coastlines looking for oil spills, but she never worked with furry sea mammals. On 9/11, leRoux’s dreams of saving otters and seals evaporated as she was instructed in the use of shotguns, 9 mm pistols and rifles. Coast Guard Reserve had such a program, I enlisted in September 2000 as a marine science technician.” “I was having fun because my true love is microbiology, but I always wanted to do environmental remediation,” says leRoux, in her spare time a scuba diver and kayaker. By the time she advanced to metals analysis, she knew the full range of analytical parameters, and that prepared her to become the microbiology supervisor. In 1993, leRoux began her career preparing samples at Environment 1, a private laboratory analyzing mostly drinking water. In 2019, the North Carolina AWWA-WEA presented leRoux with the Wastewater Laboratory Analyst Excellence Award. Callers include many former co-workers and wastewater or water personnel from Brunswick County, neighboring counties, and even private laboratories. “When odd stuff happens, my phone rings,” she says. In time, leRoux became the county’s unofficial consulting environmental chemist. Under leRoux’s leadership, the lab’s workload expanded tenfold and received a bacteriological lab certification for water chemistry. She is now laboratory supervisor for the West Brunswick Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility in the city of Supply. The next 13 years with Brunswick County (North Carolina) Public Utilities unleashed her full potential. She combined her mother’s perfumes in test tubes until a mixture of two exploded with a pop that ejected the stopper.įollowing her passion, leRoux worked 15 years in private analytical laboratories and earned a master’s degree in environmental studies. She used the microscope in her beginning chemistry set to study organisms growing on neglected food at the back of the refrigerator. She knew instinctively that was her environment, not to create monsters, but to analyze microbes. Get Laboratory articles, news and videos right in your inbox! Sign up now.Īs a child Anna leRoux was mesmerized by the laboratories depicted in horror films.
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