Abstract
A hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography (HILIC) tandem mass spectrometry method was developed to quantify a suite of contaminants of emerging concern. Several sample processing techniques were explored with the goal of providing good recovery and accuracy values for each of the tracers of interest. The method was applied to three batches of wastewater and river water samples using the quantified analytes as potential tracers of untreated wastewater. River and wastewater samples provided information regarding the impact of wastewater treatment on the tracers as well as the amount of the tracers found in a local aquatic environment.