On June 18, 2026, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission published a notice accepting PacifiCorp's application for the Ashton Hydroelectric Project and declaring it ready for environmental analysis. The filing, docketed as Project No. 2381-071, is an Exemption From Licensing application that PacifiCorp submitted on December 16, 2025 for a small run-of-river plant on the Henry's Fork of the Snake River in Fremont County, Idaho. The notice sets a deadline of 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on August 14, 2026 for motions to intervene, protests, comments, recommendations, and terms and conditions, with reply comments due by September 28, 2026.

The notice lays out the physical project in detail. The existing facility centers on a 56-foot-high, 222-foot-long earth and rock-filled dam covered with roller-compacted concrete on its downstream slope, an 82-foot-long reinforced concrete spillway with six radial gates, and a 392.9-acre reservoir with a gross storage capacity of 6,119 acre-feet. The powerhouse contains three turbine-generator units — two rated at 2.0 megawatts each and one rated at 2.7 MW — for a total installed capacity of 6.7 MW. The project occupies 15.6 acres of federal land managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

"PacifiCorp proposes to rehabilitate one generator unit (either generator Unit 2 or 3) to improve its efficiency and increase its nameplate capacity. Under PacifiCorp's proposed upgrades, the project would have a maximum capacity of 7.58 MW."— PacifiCorp; Notice of Application Accepted for Filing, FERC Project No. 2381-071, source

The uprate is the part of the application that matters most for anyone tracking how much capacity actually reaches the grid. PacifiCorp proposes to rehabilitate either Unit 2 or Unit 3 to improve efficiency and increase nameplate capacity, which the notice states would raise the project's maximum capacity to 7.58 MW. That is an incremental gain — under a megawatt — achieved by reworking existing hardware rather than building new generation, the kind of capacity addition that does not appear in headline numbers but accumulates across a relicensing portfolio.

The notice also fixes the legal datum for the project's many elevation figures, a detail that matters in a hydro record because operating limits are written in feet. It states that elevations are given in PacifiCorp's local datum unless otherwise noted, and that converting to the North American Vertical Datum of 1988 requires adding 2.972 feet. The reservoir's normal maximum water surface elevation is listed at 5,155.9 feet and the dam crest at 5,156.6 feet in that local datum. The intake is described as a reinforced concrete control structure with two stainless steel slide gates set at an invert elevation of 5,110.0 feet, feeding the powerhouse through the project's diversion works. These are the kinds of fixed parameters that an exemption order will ultimately reference when it sets the terms PacifiCorp must operate under.

What PacifiCorp is proposing to operate

Beyond the equipment, the notice records the operating commitments PacifiCorp has put on the table. The company proposes to continue operating the project in a run-of-river mode, with outflow approximating inflow, and to develop and implement an operations and compliance plan. The notice also indicates PacifiCorp would work with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game on annual trout-related measures, reflecting the fishery context of a project on the Henry's Fork, a river known for its trout waters.

The project's recreation footprint is part of the record as well. The notice describes the Ashton Boat Launch, which includes a motorized boat launch ramp with a floating courtesy dock, a non-motorized boater take-out ramp with its own floating dock, a two-stall vault toilet, picnic tables, and parking. A separate Tailwater Access site provides walk-in access to the project's tailwater area for shoreline fishing and picnicking. These facilities are cataloged because exemption and licensing proceedings weigh recreation and public access alongside power generation and environmental effects.

The procedural posture and what comes next

The application was filed pursuant to 18 CFR 16.22 and the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978, as amended by the Hydropower Regulatory Efficiency Act of 2013. The June 18 notice combines several procedural steps at once: it accepts the application for filing, states FERC's intent to waive scoping, solicits motions to intervene and protests, declares the project ready for environmental analysis, and solicits comments, recommendations, and terms and conditions. Bundling these steps is how FERC moves a small, established hydro project — one already built and operating — toward an exemption decision without a full new-license scoping process.

The notice names FERC's project coordinator, Amy Chang of the Northwest Branch, Division of Hydropower Licensing, and directs filings to the Commission's eFiling system. It also reminds intervenors that they must serve copies of their filings on every party on the official service list and on any resource agency whose responsibilities a filing may affect. Those are the mechanics of building the record that FERC will rely on when it ultimately rules on the exemption.

For energydocket readers, the Ashton filing is a window into a quieter part of the energy build-out: the relicensing and re-exemption of decades-old hydro assets. The document establishes the facts of record at this stage — a 6.7-MW run-of-river project, a proposed uprate to 7.58 MW, run-of-river operations, fishery and recreation commitments, and an August 14, 2026 comment deadline. It does not yet contain FERC's environmental analysis or any decision on the exemption; those come later in the proceeding. Until then, the notice marks the point at which the public review clock on Project No. 2381-071 begins to run.