In 1998, this column focused on Niaz Dorry, who was then Greenpeace's Northeast Fisheries and Oceans campaign manager, when Time magazine selected her as one of their "Heroes of the Environment."

Today, Dorry runs Clean Catch and is project director for Healthy Building Network.

Both organizations are helping the shrimp fishermen and their families in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, many of whom were left with little more than the shirts on their backs by Hurricane Katrina.

Dorry, a Lanesville resident, has even formed a close bond with a Louisana resident who was displaced by the hurricane, but found a home living with her in Gloucester last December.

Her goals

Dorry knows the damage Hurricane Katrina had on the fishing industry.

She reels off the figures: "Fifteen major ports, 177 seafood processing facilities, 1,816 federally-permitted fishing vessels and 13,000 state-permitted boats in the Gulf of Mexico were damaged by the hurricane."

"As a fisheries activist, I want to put the small-scale shrimpers back to work," she added. "If that doesn't happen, either factory-style shrimping or shrimp farms will replace them in the Gulf. Both are destructive economically and ecologically."

Outside interests could also acquire and develop the waterfront property and take it out of the fishing industry forever.

Dorry's guiding goal for all of her past and present work is "saving the wild ecosystem and letting humans be humans with the smallest footprint they can leave behind."

Clean Catch, the Gloucester-based environmental watch group, helped fishing villages in Sri Lanka and Indonesia rebound from the devastation of the great tsunami that hit the day after Christmas in 2004.

Headquartered at Washington, D.C., "the Healthy Building Network (HBN) is a national network of green-building professionals, environmental and health activists, socially responsible investment advocates and others who are interested in promoting healthier building materials as a means of improving public health and preserving the global environment," states its literature.

"I do a lot of the work out of my office at home via the telephone and computer. I'm one of many people who work for these groups," Dorry said.

Three-pronged attack

Dorry and her organizations, which are also working closely with Unity Homes in North Gulf Port, Miss., and the United Commercial Fishermen's Association in Baton Rouge, La., are applying a three-pronged remedy to get the fishermen and their families back to pre-Hurricane Katrina life.

Right off, they are putting roofs over the heads of the fishing families by making "affordable and healthy three-bedroom, two-bath, fully-applianced modular homes available to them through Unity Homes at a price of $85,000 each. We'll set the homes on their land or any place they want," Dorry said.

Living in FEMA's emergency housing trailers, which have formaldehyde in many of their building materials, has made many of the inhabitants sick, especially the young.

Dorry and company are also working on rebuilding the fishing industry's infrastructure, especially the ports, "in an environmentally-friendly manner with materials that aren't chemically treated and won't add to the chemical pollution of the Gulf, but will increase its ability to cleanse itself," she explained.

Dorry added, "Right now, most of the fishermen have no place to land their catches and even get ice." Contamination, including cancer-causing PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) from coastal industry over the years, has found its way into the Gulf's sediments and ecosystem.

The last part of the group's plan is to keep the fresh, wild Gulf shrimp market alive and profitable for harvesters by "keeping out the cheaper-priced farm-raised shrimp. We need to make the public aware how this industrial aquaculture is displacing the small-scale fishermen and negatively impacting the marine ecosystem and how the farm-raised shrimp is full of stuff (growth hormones and antibiotics) they shouldn't be consuming. It's hard for the locals to compete against the farm-raised shrimp," she said.

Hailey - one survivor

Besides helping the hurricane survivors through the groups, Dorry has already turned the life of one former St. Bernard Parish resident around.

"I always wanted a St. Bernard dog. I said to myself when I lost all of my cats, I would get a dog," Dorry explained. Her last feline was scooped up by a fox, fisher cat or coyote in 2006.

"While searching for the right St. Bernard on the Web site, Pet Finder, I stumbled upon the profile (complete with a photo and description) of a male Catahoula or leopard dog, named Hailey, that was rescued from St. Bernard Parish and placed in a pound in New Orleans right after the hurricane. The rescuers named him Hailey," Dorry said.

After her pet adoption application was accepted, "I picked him up on Dec. 9 from a shelter in New Jersey. Hailey was transported there after being rescued from the pound in New Orleans on March 11, 2006, the day before he was scheduled to be put to sleep, by a man from New Jersey. That man brings the pets up north and spreads them around to the shelters that won't kill," Dorry explained.

"There was something about the photo of the dog's face and body that attracted me in the first place," she said. The dog has a blue merle color pattern. His large ears, coloration, body shape, size and face's wild look resemble that of African wild dogs.

"The breed is considered to be a native Louisiana dog. The breed originated from the Australian cattle dog family that was later cross-bred with different animals including Australia's dingo. They were brought to the Gulf by the Spaniards. Hailey is a herding dog; he's also a working dog that has to have something to do. His thing is to take me on a walk three times a day," Dorry said.

Web site warnings - not true

The PetFinder.com Web site warned that Hailey "doesn't like other dogs and can't get along well with men. These proved to be not true," Dorry said. Hailey gets along well with the neighborhood dogs that he has met.

Incidentally, Hailey's Lanesville neighborhood now has 14 canine residents, probably one of the most dog-dense areas on Cape Ann. Hailey also warmed up quickly on his own terms to this dog-owning columnist. Neighbors also take Hailey for walks with their dogs when Dorry is away.

"He likes the woods and has no desire to swim," Dorry said.

She and Hailey have formed close bonds by now. They know the meanings of each other's actions and looks on their faces.

"He's very good-natured," Dorry said. She remembers the first time she took the leash off of Hailey and let him run free in the yard.

"I was hesitant about having him off of the leash. When I took it off the first time, he looked back at me saying, 'Are you kidding? Can I actually run?' Hailey kept running around after that. His breed is very loyal; they are not wanderers," Dorry said.

Hailey did arrive in Gloucester with some trauma from both the hurricane and being caged so long at the pounds.

"He would hide from the sound of running water from either the faucet or shower at first. Also, he would run away if you suddenly raised your hand as if to throw a ball," Dorry said. Hailey no longer has those fears.

"I don't know the dog's real birthday. I consider it to be March 11, the day he got rescued by the New Jersey man," Dorry said.

She added, "I got lucky with this dog. Somebody trained him well. I wonder all the time who his owner was and if he or she is still alive today."