Build a fish ladder

Regarding “Raise Shasta Dam” (Letters, July 18): That dam was built with the promise to build a viable fish ladder — still no fish ladder nearly a century later — for well over 100 years, the dams on the west coast have truncated the salmon’s cycle of life. They don’t make it deep into the forests anymore. Their emulsions aren’t spread by bears and all the forests’ creatures that used to thrive on the spring and fall runs. Now, the forests are dying en masse. Millions of trees in California alone over the last 20 years of drought prove one thing: Without the salmon, the trees die.

Without the trees, oxygen and capture of carbon dioxide, we’re screwed. Instead of raising the dam, build a viable fish ladder around it and all the other dams on the West Coast. It’s taken us 100 years to get into this fix, it will take farthinking to get us back on the path.