The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission published a notice on June 18, 2026 stating that its Office of Energy Projects has completed and made available the final environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Seminoe Pumped Storage Project, a proposed 972-megawatt facility filed by Black Canyon Hydro, LLC under FERC Project No. 14787. The notice appeared at 91 FR 36818 and was issued under docket Project No. 14787-004. According to the record, the review was conducted in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and the Commission's regulations at 18 CFR part 380.

The notice describes the physical setting of the proposed project in specific terms. FERC states that the 972-megawatt project would be located at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Seminoe Reservoir on the North Platte River in Carbon County, Wyoming, approximately 35 miles northeast of Rawlins. The land footprint is itemized in the document: 1,043.9 acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management, 88.2 acres managed by Reclamation, and 831.7 acres of private lands, for a combined area of roughly 1,964 acres.

"The 972-megawatt project would be located at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's (Reclamation) Seminoe Reservoir on the North Platte River in Carbon County, Wyoming, approximately 35 miles northeast of Rawlins, Wyoming."— Federal Register, source

What the cooperating-agency list shows

The notice names eight entities that participated as cooperating agencies in preparing the EIS: Reclamation, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Western Area Power Administration, the Saratoga-Encampment-Rawlins Conservation District, the Medicine Bow Conservation District, and the Carbon County Board of Commissioners. The breadth of that list reflects the mix of land managers, water and wildlife authorities, and local government bodies whose jurisdictions the proposed project touches. The presence of the Western Area Power Administration, a federal power marketing administration, indicates the project's relationship to the regional transmission and power-marketing context, though the notice itself does not describe interconnection terms.

Pumped storage projects of this type move water between two reservoirs at different elevations, pumping water uphill when power is plentiful and releasing it through turbines to generate electricity when demand rises. The Seminoe filing sites the lower reservoir at an existing Reclamation facility. The Federal Register notice does not detail the engineering configuration, the upper reservoir specifics, or a construction timeline; those details reside in the full EIS and the underlying license application, which the notice directs readers to access through the Commission's eLibrary system.

What the final EIS covers and where the docket stands

The notice states that the final EIS contains an analysis of the applicant's proposal and the alternatives for licensing the project. It adds that the document records the views of governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, affected Native-American Tribes, the public, the license applicant, and Commission staff. In NEPA practice, a final EIS follows a draft EIS and public comment period, and its issuance is a procedural step that precedes a Commission licensing decision. The notice itself is a notice of availability, not a licensing order; it informs interested parties that the analysis is complete and accessible.

The document is dated June 12, 2026 and signed by Debbie-Anne A. Reese, Secretary of the Commission, and was filed for publication on June 17, 2026. FERC directs readers to view the final EIS on the Commission's website under the eLibrary link by entering the docket number, excluding the last three digits, in the docket number field. The notice also points members of the public toward FERC's Office of Public Participation for assistance with filings such as interventions, comments, or requests for rehearing, and lists Michael Tust as the contact for further information.

For readers tracking the U.S. energy storage pipeline, the Seminoe filing is a data point on the long-duration, mechanical end of the storage spectrum rather than the battery side. At 972 megawatts, the project as described in the notice would sit among the larger pumped storage proposals in the FERC queue. The Federal Register record does not state when the Commission will act on the license application, nor does it characterize the project's likelihood of being built; it confirms only that the environmental analysis is complete and available for review. As the project record advances, the operative milestones to watch are the Commission's licensing order and any subsequent conditions attached to a license, both of which would appear in the same Project No. 14787 docket.

The procedural footprint in the docket number

The docket designation in the notice, Project No. 14787-004, carries information for readers tracking the filing. The base number 14787 identifies the project, and the suffix indicates the sequence of sub-dockets that have accumulated as the application has moved through FERC's review. The notice instructs readers to enter the docket number excluding the last three digits in the eLibrary search field, which means searches under 14787 surface the full filing history rather than a single sub-docket. The agency also offers an email-notification registration through its FERConline portal, allowing interested parties to be alerted to new filings and issuances on this or other pending projects.

The notice carries practical contact pathways that signal the stage of public process. It directs the public to FERC's Office of Public Participation at a dedicated phone line for assistance with interventions, comments, or requests for rehearing. Those mechanisms are the formal ways a party establishes standing in the proceeding and preserves the ability to seek review of a future Commission decision. The presence of those instructions in a notice of availability is routine, but it marks the point at which the environmental analysis is settled enough that the remaining contest, if any, shifts to the licensing determination and its conditions.

The full text of the notice, including the land-acreage figures and the complete cooperating-agency list quoted above, is available on the Federal Register's site at the canonical document URL, and the underlying EIS is available through FERC eLibrary using the docket number. The authority cited in the notice is 18 CFR 2.1.