Every year in May or June, my family descends on a small beach community in Florida for what we consider to be a well-deserved vacation. Earlier this spring, as we were solidifying plans for this year's trip, I thought to myself, "Great! This will be the perfect time to write about sustainable seafood."

I've spent many a spring or summer evening tucking into all-you can eat baskets of fresh, local crab claws or crawfish, platters of shrimp and grits, and my fair share of grouper and amberjack. Eager to see whether what's on the menu at my favorite coastal haunts is actually sustainable, I installed the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch application on my iPod Touch (the same information is available for other mobile handheld devices at mobile.seafoodwatch.org, and printed copies are available for download at www.seafoodwatch.org). I also picked up a copy of Taras Grescoe's Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood. It's an informative volume, though it mostly addresses global seafood markets. As far as U.S. seafood goes, it only touches on New York and the Chesapeake Bay and skips right over the markets of the Gulf of Mexico, where my family's vacation home is located.

That's right. I was prepped for a tasty exploration of the Gulf Coast seafood, but everything changed with the catastrophic explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 20. The disaster killed 11 crewmembers and set off a deluge of petroleum into the waters of the gulf.

Depending on whose estimates you believe, more than 85 million gallons of oil have been "spilled" into the gulf waters — leaving the Exxon Valdez's "piddling" 11 million in the dust. And since BP's planned remedy of plugging the well with mud and cement (a method known as "top kill") has failed, that number will only continue to climb. As of this writing, crude oil continues to spew into the Gulf of Mexico, and ghastly oil slicks have begun encroaching on coastal marshes. According to Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana, almost 70 miles of that state's shoreline have been affected.

We may not know the full extent of the damage caused by the Deepwater Horizon for quite some time. I don't know whether oil has oozed into the emerald-green waters just off the Florida Panhandle or smeared the sugar-sand beaches I romped on as a child. It's still too early to tell what kind of impact the disaster will have on area businesses and tourism, but early financial forecasts are grim. Even if the communities along that coast never see overt evidence of oil, one thing is certain: we're going to need a new definition of "sustainable seafood" — at least as it pertains to catch from the Gulf of Mexico.

The oil has already made its way into marshy fishing bays and oyster beds. And despite the fact that vast areas of the gulf have been closed to fishing, no one can control whether marine wildlife swims through the area of the "spill" and into fishable waters. Restaurateurs, unsure of the effect the disaster will have on the seafood industry and their business, are taking precautionary measures, buying large quantities of shrimp and crab, for example, and freezing it. Even in Santa Fe, some are stocking up.

Oil, of course, is highly toxic. But one of BP's "remedies" may have negative effects on the health of marine wildlife and humans, too. Corexit, the chosen chemical dispersant, does just what that description suggests — it doesn't help soak up the oil but rather sends it to places it otherwise might not go. Scientists debate the relative toxicity of Corexit, but no one knows the effects it could have after remaining in the water for years. Regardless, the "solution" of dispersing millions of gallons of oil to wider areas of water seems questionable at best. I'm certainly not inclined to take a dip in water I think is suffused with petroleum. Fish, though, don't have a choice.

Before I paint myself into a Barbara Boxer-esque environmentalist corner, I'll admit that I don't know what I think about off-shore drilling. It's a complicated issue, given our nation's reliance on petroleum and relative reluctance to pursue alternative forms of energy. But when I consider the old truism "oil and water don't mix," I can't help but wonder how good an idea rigs like the Deepwater Horizon can be.

This vacation may be a far cry from typical. Instead of lounging in the sand and sipping frozen tropical beverages, I may find myself cleaning oil out of pelicans' feathers. That could turn out to be a more rewarding way to spend a week anyway, though. Check back next month. I'll report what I saw — and ate.

Laurel Gladden is a freelance writer in Santa Fe. Contact the.ethical.epicure@gmail.com.