One way to mitigate the spread of leaking oil is to construct a metal 'tent' that will channel the rising oil for underwater vacuum devices to suck up. This method is being used to capture escaping natural gas in a few places now.
It's not very likely that this method will be used though, since they are still trying to figure out just who is responsible and the cost of such a large underwater construction project is huge.
I have some old friends from NOAA that are there now doing surveys, creating flow models and helping in the planning of the cleanup process and procedures. There are some VERY highly skilled people working on this spill so be assured that everything and anything is either being done or is in the plans to be done if at all possible.
The only limiting factor is just whose money is going to fund the cleanup, that is where the State of Alaska lucked out. Almost 3 billion dollars will have been spent by Exxon by FY'03, almost 500 million of that in ongoing scientific research funding.
BTW, double hull tankers, while being safer in cases of groundings, are more susceptible to swamping and sinking when a catistrophic hull breach occurs. If the outside hull is breached in a longitudinal manner under the waterline the resulting increase of water weight could make the ship sink even faster, if the inner hull is also breached, than a single hulled vessel. Add a breach in both hulls due to a heavy collision and even if the ship doesn't sink, her maneuvering capibility will be severly affected by the added weight of the water between hulls, this would be a major concern in coastal waters.
The only way to effectively prevent seagoing tanker oil spills is to stop using them, period. Until then....shit happens, how fast the industry reacts and contains the spill is the only important issue now.
