Paul C. Kusnierz

• MS Biology
• Fisheries Biologist at Avista

The Clean Water Act (CWA) was passed by the United States Congress in 1972. It established regulations for the quality of discharges from point sources and a framework to assess water quality condition, identify what must be done for impaired waters to meet water quality standards, and work with stakeholders to improve water quality conditions. Sec...

When water is spilled over dams, atmospheric gases can become entrained, resulting in supersaturated water. Total dissolved gas (TDG) > 110% saturation can cause gas bubble trauma (GBT) in fish. The negative effects of GBT include increased buoyancy, decreased swimming performance, and possible mortality. The lower Clark Fork River (LCFR) in Idaho...

Macrophytes serve as habitat to many fish species. The establishment of Eurasian watermilfoil (EWM; Myriophyllum spicatum) can change the macrophyte community of a waterbody, leading to a cascade of abiotic and biotic alterations that ultimately change fish communities and demo-graphics. Given the potential negative effects of EWM, we reviewed the...

When water is spilled over dams, atmospheric gasses can become entrained resulting in supersaturated water. When total dissolved gas (TDG) exceeds 110% saturation, gas bubble trauma (GBT) can result in fishes. Negative effects of GBT include increased buoyancy, decreased swimming performance, and possible mortality. The lower Clark Fork River in Id...

Anthropogenic changes in water temperature can pose significant risk to thermoelectric and hydroelectric generation. In this study, we developed indicators of thermal risk (ITRs) to assess risk to water-dependent electricity generating assets under future climate. We projected future changes in water temperature and quantified ITRs for plants acros...

Objective Gas bubble trauma (GBT) can occur in fish when water becomes supersaturated with gases, with effects ranging from minor tissue damage to death. Laboratory studies suggest that fish exposure to elevated total dissolved gas (TDG) at depths that compensate for gas supersaturation can result in reduced GBT incidence and that different fish sp...

The Clean Water Act (CWA) was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1972 with the goal to “to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters". Broadly, this piece of legislation provides the framework for the regulation of water quality standards and discharges to surface waters of the U.S. Section 303(d) of t...

The Clark Fork River in Montana is well-known for having high nutrient levels. However, the lower Clark Fork River in Idaho has low nutrient levels and low abundance of Brown Trout Salmo trutta, Rainbow Trout Oncorhynchus mykiss, and Westslope Cutthroat Trout O. clarkii lewisi. The purpose of this study was to determine whether nutrients could be l...

Climate change is concerning for fisheries professionals because increased water temperatures threaten coldwater habitats, which are vital to recreational and commercial fisheries and keystone species. The Clean Water Act provides a legal framework to identify and address water quality impairments including those associated with temperature. Althou...

As part of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission license issued to Avista that allows for the operation of Noxon Rapids and Cabinet Gorge dams, there are specific requirements for mitigation of fisheries impacts. One of the major mitigation measures under this license has the purpose of mitigating for the continuing effects of these dams as obst...

Lake Pend Oreille and the Clark Fork River provide essential ecosystem services, including fisheries and hydroelectric power, to residents of Montana, Idaho, and Washington. Although conflicts exist, these services are maintained in concert by emergent sociocultural services created by a multi-institutional, transboundary collaboration. This has be...

For fisheries professionals, climate change is concerning because increased water temperatures threaten coldwater habitats, which are vital to recreational and commercial fisheries. The Clean Water Act provides a framework to identify and address water quality impairments including those associated with temperature. Although this framework provides...

Operation of Cabinet Gorge Dam on the Clark Fork River in Idaho is governed by a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission license and the Clark Fork Settlement Agreement (CFSA). In 2017 an amendment to the license and the CFSA allowed for a reduction of minimum flows from 5,000 cfs to 3,000 cfs from November 1 through September 14. The Clark Fork River...

Climate change has been documented for over 120 years with increasing scientific rigor, and its impacts are already observable in marine and freshwater fisheries. But after decades of communication to underscore the validity of these changes, and the urgency for action, a large component of the public and many elected officials deny the scientific...

Geology plays an important role in the evolution of a stream and the formation of habitat therein. In this study, we assessed the importance of accounting for geology when evaluating sediment-related, stream habitat data. The importance of accounting for geology in data analysis was evaluated using five sediment-related habitat variables and three...

Fish hard-part microchemistry is utilized in marine and freshwater environments to determine natal origins, migration routes, and sources of introduced populations. Prior to conducting these studies, baseline water chemistry concentrations should be established. This project explored the variability of strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr), Sr/calcium, and...

Poor water quality is one of the greatest threats to fish population recovery, fisheries, and aquaculture. There are examples of game fish species and species of conservation concern threatened by poor water quality conditions across North America (Warren and Burr 1994; Couillard et al. 2008). In the Missouri River–Fort Peck Reservoir, low dissolve...

Coaster Brook Trout Salvelinus fontinalis are an ecotype that were once common throughout Lake Superior and its tributaries. Today coasters are found in limited watersheds and there is much interest in restoring depressed and extirpated populations of these fish. One such project occurred in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in the upper peninsula...

Spill over Cabinet Gorge Dam can result in high levels of total dissolved gas (TDG) in the lower Clark Fork River, Idaho. Research performed on this river and published in 2003, demonstrated that GBD incidence was less than expected relative to the TDG values observed and that fish typically resided at depths >2 m, behaviorally reducing the physiol...

Spill over Cabinet Gorge Dam can result in high levels of total dissolved gas (TDG) in the lower Clark Fork River. In 2003, two papers that described TDG, gas bubble disease (GBD), and fish behavior in the lower Clark Fork River were published. The main findings of these papers were that GBD incidence was less than expected relative to the TDG valu...

PurposeGeology plays an important role in the evolution of a stream and the formation of habitat therein. As geology varies across the landscape, the differential response of various geological types to environmental and anthropogenic factors may cause differences in stream habitat. In this study, we assessed the importance of accounting for geolog...

Bed stability is an important stream habitat attribute because it affects geomorphology and biotic communities. Natural resource managers desire indices of bed stability that can be used under a wide range of geomorphic conditions, are biologically meaningful, and are easily incorporated into sampling protocols. To eliminate potential bias due to p...

Managers of aquatic resources benefit from indices of habitat quality that are reproducible and easy to measure, demonstrate a link between habitat quality and biota health, and differ between human-impacted (i.e., managed) and reference (i.e., nonimpacted or minimally impacted) conditions. The instability index (ISI) is an easily measured index th...

The Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is responsible for developing total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) for waterbodies that do not meet water quality standards. Temperature is often a concern to fisheries managers and has been addressed in 55 TMDLs for 45 Montana streams, among them the Beaverhead, Blackfoot, Big Hole, Bitterroot, Je...

Brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) from Lake Superior and its tributaries exhibit a variety of life histories and different growth characteristics; however, life history-specific effects on population dynamics are not well understood. The goal of this study was to characterize the movement patterns of brook trout in two streams with access to Lake...

Seals (Phocidae) are known predators of Atlantic Salmon Salmo salar from their entry into the estuary as smolts until their return to freshwater as adults. We developed a written protocol for identifying seal‐induced injuries on adult Atlantic Salmon returning to Maine rivers. The protocol, which includes photos and category definitions, has been u...

Water quality professionals seeking to determine the health of aquatic ecosystems benefit from physical metrics that are easy to measure, can be used to differentiate between streams in reference and managed watersheds, and can be linked to aquatic life effects. A search of the peer-reviewed literature yielded an instability index (ISI) that has be...

The coaster Brook Trout Salvelinus fontinalis is a Lake Superior ecotype representing intraspecific variation that has been impacted by habitat loss and overfishing. Hatchery strains of Brook Trout derived from populations in Lake Superior were stocked into streams within Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Michigan, as part of an effort to rehabili...

Statistical tests such as the t-test and ANOVA, their non-parametric counterparts, and linear regression are used frequently in fisheries research and management. Although these tests can be used to help develop management goals and determine if goals are being achieved, they do not necessarily extract all of the information that is available in a...

Salmon provide an important resource subsidy and linkage between marine and land-based ecosystems. This flow of energy and nutrients is not unidirectional (i.e., upstream only); in addition to passive nutrient export via stream flow, juvenile emigrants actively export nutrients from freshwater environments. In some cases, nutrient export can exceed...

The Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has been delegated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to implement provisions of the Clean Water Act. This includes submitting a 305(b) report every two years to the EPA describing the condition of all waters within the state’s jurisdiction and creating a 303(d) list of impaired waters...

Brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) are found throughout Lake Superior, Lake Nipigon, and their tributaries. Lacustrine and adfluvial life history variants were historically popular with anglers and were called coasters; coaster brook trout populations are now severely reduced and are of conservation concern. Coasters were known to grow larger and...