Groundwater serves as a vital source of drinking water for millions of people worldwide. In the United States, a substantial population depends on groundwater for household purposes, including drinking, and therefore, ensuring a clean and safe water supply is imperative to preventing a wide range of human and nonhuman diseases. Biological and chemical water contamination causes diseases—both major and minor. In this issue's media spotlight column, we review the film Erin Brockovich (2000). It is based on the true events in Hinkley, CA, whose residents suffered from several waterborne diseases caused by anthropogenic heavy metal poisoning; a topic more relevant today than it was 25 years ago. The film's protagonist Erin Brockovich, the eponymous legal clerk working on a pro bono case connected threatening diseases in local residents to chromium poisoning in groundwater. She unearthed evidence that the source of the poisoning was unlined wastewater ponds in the Hinkley compressor station of Pacific Gas & Electric—a major energy company in California—that contained dissolved hexavalent chromium. About "370 million gallons of Cr(VI)-laden wastewater" was dumped in large unlined ponds from 1952 to 1964, which led to severe groundwater poisoning in an area of ~2 mile2. She almost single-handedly led the campaign against PG&E and educated the general masses about the harmful effects of chromium poisoning. The above conversation disseminates information regarding the types of chromium—chemically speaking, the different oxidation states of chromium—in groundwater. The audience is acutely made aware that their diseases can be passed along to their biological offspring as Cr(VI) can cause changes to DNA and mutagenesis. Cr(III) is not harmful because it is neither soluble in natural groundwater nor does it readily get absorbed in our bodies. Cr(VI), on the other hand, is very harmful because it can dissolve relatively easily in natural water that is usually alkaline and oxygen-rich. The Cr(VI) bearing chromate ion [CrVIO42−] can enter all cell types in the human body via active sulfate transporters owing to their similar structure. Cr(VI) can thus become a part of the human biochemical cycle and can mutate DNA structures, causing all sorts of diseases, including cancer. Once Cr(VI) enters the mammalian cell, it can get reduced to Cr(III), which binds directly with the DNA causing mutagenesis. The reduction of Cr(VI) can also produce unstable and highly reactive Cr(V) and Cr(IV) intermediates that are the source of further cellular damage in the human body. The availability, solubility, reactivity, and toxicity of different heavy metals are strongly controlled by their oxidation states. We believe that the movie accurately describes and educates its audiences on the effects of the oxidation state and demonstrates how nuanced discussion of scientific information is sometimes misused and convoluted to blind people who are not experts. Aqueous geochemists who study elements in aqueous systems and their chemical properties at different oxidation states as a function of solution acidity (aka pH) and oxidizing nature (aka Eh) would find the film interesting. In 1996, PG&E paid $333 million to settle the lawsuit—the largest amount ever paid in any direct-action lawsuit in the United States—and was mandated to remediate the contamination by converting soluble Cr(VI) to insoluble Cr(III) by injecting ethyl alcohol in the groundwater. In 2012, the amount of hexavalent chromium in the groundwater remained more than the interim regulatory background concentration. The U.S. Geological Survey recently submitted a report that reassessed the natural background and anthropogenic levels of Cr(VI) of different areas of Hinkley Valley by studying geologic, geochemical, and hydrologic processes that the local water board will use to establish regulatory background concentrations. The findings of this 5-year study pointed out that Cr(VI) in alkaline, oxic groundwater in the Hinkley Valley is dependent on a combination of geological and anthropological factors, including local mineralogy, weathering and oxidation rates, aquifer textures, fluid Eh-pH, and groundwater age. After 25 years since its release, Erin Brockovich still remains relevant and a trailblazer in promulgating awareness about hexavalent chromium in water. The film and Erin herself have raised awareness in the United States regarding several other environmentally related issues and have demonstrated that such incidents can disproportionately affect marginalized communities, exacerbating existing inequalities. Some other movies that have tackled groundwater contamination include Dark Waters (2019), A Civil Action (1995), and Irada (transl. Intention) (2017). We encourage our readers to (re)watch these movies and Julia Roberts in her Academy Award-winning performance in and as Erin Brockovich.