ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Rapper-turned-actor Chris “Ludacris” Bridges sparked concern from some social media followers when he knelt on an Alaska glacier, dipped an empty water bottle right into a blue, pristine pool of water and drank it.
Video of Ludacris tasting the glacial water and proclaiming, “Oh my God!” bought tens of millions of views on TikTok and Instagram. Some viewers expressed concern that he was endangering his life by consuming the untreated water, warning it is likely to be contaminated with the parasite giardia.
However an skilled on glaciers from the College of Alaska in Fairbanks stated the web brouhaha “was ludicrous.”
“He’s completely fantastic,” glaciologist Martin Truffer stated Wednesday.
“It’s kind of comprehensible that any person can be involved about simply consuming untreated water, however if you happen to drink water from a soften stream on a glacier, that’s concerning the cleanest water you’ll ever get.”
Ludacris donned ice cleats to knock off a bucket checklist merchandise and stroll Knik Glacier, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of Anchorage, whereas he was within the nation’s largest state to carry out Friday on the Alaska State Truthful. He was clearly happy by the style of the glacial water.
“I’m a water snob,” he stated in a later video earlier than a live performance Tuesday in Minneapolis. “It was the very best tasting water I’ve ever had in my life.”
Signs of giardiasis, the sickness brought on by giardia, embody diarrhea, abdomen cramps and dehydration. It will possibly unfold from one individual to a different or by means of contaminated water, meals, surfaces or objects. The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention suggests individuals keep away from swallowing water whereas swimming and boiling or filtering water from lakes, springs or rivers earlier than consuming it to forestall getting sick.
The Alaska Division of Environmental Conservation doesn’t advocate consuming untreated floor water, spokesperson Kelly Rawalt stated in an electronic mail. It additionally has produced a flyer with secure consuming practices for outside lovers, together with including chlorine or iodine to quart-size water containers and letting them sit an hour earlier than consuming.
Truffer, who acknowledged he knew of Ludacris solely as a result of his neighbor in Fairbanks named his cat after the rapper, stated it’s not all the time secure to drink water from a stream within the wild. However he stated the water Ludacris drank hadn’t had any publicity to organic exercise.
“There’s simply actually no concern on these glacial streams about security,” he stated.
“I’ve executed this many, many occasions myself with out ever having any problem,” he stated.
Alaska is house to about 100,000 glaciers, with the icy lots overlaying about 28,800 sq. miles (74,590 sq. kilometers) — or 3% of the state. Based on the Alaska Division of Pure Assets, that’s 128 occasions the realm lined by glaciers within the different 49 states.
For some guests to Alaska, seeing a glacier is a once-in-a-lifetime alternative. However local weather change is taking its toll, and the melting of Juneau’s icefield is accelerating, in keeping with a research that got here out final month. The snow-covered space is now shrinking 4.6 occasions sooner than it was within the Eighties.
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