NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Shrimpers returned to Louisiana waters yesterday for the first commercial season since the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, uncertain what crude may still be in the water and what price they'll get for the catch if consumers worry about possible lingering effects from the massive BP spill.

The spill has put a crimp in the fishing industry in a state that ranks first in the nation in producing shrimp, blue crab, crawfish and oysters, a $318-million-a year business in Louisiana. US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke planned to visit the state yesterday to lunch with fishermen and talk to seafood industry representatives.

Perhaps the biggest fear is that some fisherman might try to sell oil-contaminated shrimp and scare consumers away again after prices crashed once already this summer.

"If you see oily shrimp, you got to throw them back over. Go somewhere else. It's all you can do. And you hope everyone else does the same," said Dewayne Baham, 49, a shrimper from Buras.

While fishermen worried about the effect of the spill on the new season, the final fix to the blown-out well at the heart of the problem remained at least a week away.

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the Obama administration's point man on the spill, told reporters yesterday that it will be roughly seven days after he gives the order to proceed with the so-called bottom kill before the well is dead.

But Allen doesn't know when he'll give that order. Scientists and engineers from BP and the federal government are looking at two options to relieve pressure inside the well before the bottom kill, in which heavy mud and cement are pumped in from below.

One option would involve building a pressure-relief system in the temporary cap that has kept the oil from gushing into the Gulf for more than a month now. The second option would involve swapping out that equipment for a different model. Allen said both options would lengthen the time necessary to kill the well, but declined to estimate exactly how long the whole process will take.