It isn't likely that, with such a universally hated victim as EXXON, the fishermen would complain that they had been over-compensated. It is also noteworthy that after the spill & cleanup the people of Alaska voted to continue the development of their petroleum reserves on the north slope of that state.
The single hull tankers to which the poster above referred were not a creation of the 1970s at all - notwithstanding the pious pretentions of the author he cites. Single hull ships had been the universal standard of design throughout the 20th century for all such vessels. What happened after 1970 was that, with the long-term closure of the Suez Canal, the average trip taken by these vessels from their then major source in the Persian Gulf to the principal customers (then in Europe), became much longer, and ship design was no longer subject to the physical restrictions of the canal. This profoundly changed the economics of the matter to favor much larger ships. What happened in the 1970s was that the ships simply became much bigger, making the individual effects of any major or minor mishap much greater, but not materially increasing the total consequences per ton shipped. In short the bad consequences became concentrated in fewer, far more dramatic, events - causing them to capture more public attention.
In fact the crew comforts, working conditions and applied technology on the VLCCs were much improved over their less modern predecessors. The crew of the EXXON Valdez was NOT "overworked and underqualified" as the author implies. The facts established in the investigation confirm that the navigation equipment on the bridge WAS functioning accurately, but that, contrary to the operator's policy, the captain was either absent from the bridge during critical moments or too impaired by alcohol intoxication to do his job properly. These were faults for which the environment, and EXXON, paid dearly.
Double hull vessels are, as noted, much more expensive, and they present their own potential hazards (capsizing in the event the hull is punctured at an empty wing tank). However, it is pretty clear now that both the overall economics and safety considerations do strongly favor double hull construction. (U.S. Navy tankers, though smaller, were all built with double hulls, beginning soon after WWII.)
I particularly object to the hyperbole in this section quoted from this much-touted work;
Even dull authors need to make a living, and some latitude must be granted them in making their products sufficiently titilating and emotionally appealing to potential readers. Moral outrage is one of several proven techniques for this purpose, apparently filling a need of some bored, unchallenged potential readers. However this overinflated, pretentious bombast should not go unchallenged. The "wasteful societies" whose "heedless practices first made supertankers a necessity" constituted all the advanced societies of the Western World -- prominently including Canada, whose energy consumption per capita leads the world.
Perhaps Hamburger would prefer to freeze in the dark in Ontario.
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