ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES

Environmental Challenges

Environmental Challenges

Introduction

Americans by more than 2-1 support pursuit of criminal charges in the nation's worst oil spill, with expanding numbers calling it a foremost ecological catastrophe, eight in 10 admonishing the way BP's managed it - and the federal government's own answer ranked worse than it was in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. A month and a half after the spill began, 69 percent in a new ABC News/Washington mail sample rate the federal answer negatively. That compares with a 62 contradictory rating for the response to Katrina two weeks after the August 2005 hurricane. BP's answer to the spill draws even broader condemnation - 81 percent rate it negatively. And 64 percent say the government should chase criminal charges against BP and other businesses involved in the spill, which has poured oil into the Gulf from a well 5,000 feet under the exterior since an explosion and blaze destroyed the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig April 20.

Discussion

This sample was conducted Thursday through Sunday, mostly before BP broadcast Sunday that a containment cap on the well was capturing a considerable piece of the gushing oil. Nonetheless BP faces deep impairment to its public likeness: Nearly three-quarters of Americans, 73 per hundred, glimpse “unnecessary dangers taken by BP and its drilling partners” as a significant component in the spill. And in the middle of fouled beaches, oiled wildlife and shut fisheries, there's growing public dismay with the damage. Seventy-three percent now call the spill a foremost ecological disaster, up sharply from 55 percent in a Pew Research Center sample a month ago.

Support for pursuit of criminal charges against BP and its partner's rises to 71 percent among people who call the spill a major disaster, and likewise to 73 percent among those who suspect that unnecessary risks were taken by BP ...