Have you watched Erin Brokovich? The movie is based on a true story of a real person and real litigation over water contaminated with Chromium (VI).
Chromium (VI) is chromium in a +6 oxidation state, as it is in CrO3 and K2Cr2O7, and other heavy-weight chromium oxidizing agents. It's both toxic and carcinogenic. There aren't a lot of other heavyweight oxidizers out there, so this stuff is used frequently. One alternative that gets some use is KMnO4, potassium permanganate.
Oxygen gas (O2) and ozone (O3) also are used to oxidize stuff, although O2 is pretty slow for laboratory chemistry. However it is cheap and readily available, and on longer timescales it reacts readily with a lot of stuff, including things we don't want it to react with.....like the surface of a cut avocado or apple, or the metal surface of a shovel left out in the elements over the winter.
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