Jordan Carleo-Evangelist is reporting at Capitol Confidential Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan is calling on the Thruway Authority to allow state environmental regulators take the lead role in overseeing a review of the proposed Pilgrim Pipeline. In a letter to the Thruway Authority dated Mon., Dec. 7, Sheehan requested the state Department of Environmental Conservation be permitted to take lead agency status for the 178-mile crude oil pipeline project. Last month, the Thruway Authority notified the DEC that it had until December 16 to contest the authority's assertion of lead agency status on the review. In her letter, Sheehan noted that while much of the pipeline's proposed path is on Thruway land, there are potential impacts on "many environmental areas" not on authority property. She also voiced concern that the Thruway's lead role would nullify requirements to include the project's impacts on environmental justice areas, such as the city's southern end, in the review. The DEC, Sheehan wrote, has “greater experience for providing the most thorough environmental assessment of the proposed action.” The proposed Pilgrim Pipeline would move Bakken crude from Albany to Linden, N.J., through Albany, Greene, and Ulster counties, and send refined crude back to Albany, largely along the I-87 corridor. In Greene County, the proposed project veers east of Route 9W west of Sleepy Hollow Lake in Athens, and then back near the interstate around Leeds-Athens Road. After Catskill, the pipeline veers west of the interstate briefly around Cauterskill Road. Read the full story at Capitol Confidential, a Times Union blog.