This article was published in Wrexham.com, 8 September 2026, and can be found here.
The Monsanto Contamination Action Group met for the first time in Plas Madoc on Wednesday, 2 September. The sports hall was packed to the rafters with affected constituents, many telling deeply upsetting and emotionally moving personal accounts of their own and their family’s lived experiences about the scale of the scandalous dumping of toxic, carcinogenic chemicals across Glyndŵr, dating back well over half a century.
The new BBC Two documentary Buried, presented by Michael Sheen, has focused local public attention in a way I could not have dreamed of when I took up this issue shortly after my election over two years go.
As I recounted to the investigative team of Michael, Dan, and Lucy, shown in episode two of the documentary, my experience of trying to uncover the truth has been deeply frustrating. All efforts have been largely ignored by those with the mandate (though not the funds) to test these sites.
Despite twelve individual, formal questions asked during evidence sessions of the Welsh Affairs Select Committee dating back to April 2025, two meetings with Natural Resources Wales (NRW), and a barrage of letters to them, the Welsh Government, and Wrexham County Borough Council, no commitment to comprehensive testing has been forthcoming.
When I addressed the crowd gathered in the hall on Wednesday night, I asked constituents for their support in demanding just that: the full testing of all suspected dumping sites in our communities, of the blood of potentially affected people, and of our waterways too.
Professionally, I feel vindicated for having used my position to shed light on this, because the indicative findings seem far worse than thought. Personally, I cannot say I am particularly happy to hear just how appalling they are.
I have been an Acrefair resident for most of my adult life, and I raise my children a few hundred metres from one of the dumping sites. I have family members who were directly connected to the factory and personally witnessed the dumping. To say I am outraged would be an understatement.
As well as outraged, many will feel betrayed. Monsanto’s ‘Ruabon Works’ once gave a living to families right across the area, and so are remembered fondly by some. But when the documentary alleged that Monsanto chose areas like ours precisely because they could hide the damage they knew their pollution would cause behind the occupational poor health left by our industrial heritage, it is hard not to see this as an indelible stain on their reputation – one as ugly as the stain left on our communities, and on our bodies too.
Perhaps they knew we would not complain. Well, now we are complaining. This was what was so moving about Wednesday’s meeting.
The resolute work of individuals has been inspirational (and, from personal experience, tiring). But we will get nowhere without the resolute organisation and total mobilisation of our communities towards our shared goal of truth and justice.
This is the task we must now commit to. Wednesday marked only another step of the campaign to get justice for my family, constituents, and community.
I need your help to make sure this burning injustice can be ignored no longer. Please, talk to your neighbours about it, get in touch with me at [email protected], join the Monsanto Contamination Action Group on Facebook, and keep fighting the good fight.
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