FORT WALTON BEACH — With BP raising the spectre of corruption at some Gulf Coast Deepwater Horizon claims offices, Claims Administrator Patrick Juneau has embarked on a goodwill tour of the offices.
On Tuesday he visited with the seven women who staff the claims center in Fort Walton Beach.
“I’m gonna stand on y’all’s side,” he told them.
He said BP’s allegations that the claims process was nothing more than a “good ol’ boy, good ol’ girl network” couldn’t be further from the truth.
“None of that is true. It’s ridiculous, offensive,” he said. “We’ve got to be bigger than that and we are … you’re doing the right thing and don’t have any worry about that,” he told the staff.
BP and Juneau clashed for the second time over the claims budget Sept. 11, when the oil giant responsible for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill asked U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier to cut Juneau’s fourth-quarter budget by $25.5 million, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
The request cited a report filed by former FBI Director Louis Freeh that raised questions of corruption at some claims offices, the newspaper said.
Juneau visited claims offices in Apalachicola, Panama City, Fort Walton Beach and Pensacola on Tuesday. He spent Monday visiting offices farther down the Gulf Coast, and planned to travel through Alabama and Mississippi today.
Claims for damages caused by the Deepwater Horizon spill can be made through next April.
Juneau said 24,969 claims have been submitted thus far in the 14-county Florida Panhandle region. Of those, 8,558 had been ruled eligible for payment in the amount of $481,545,680.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Tom McLaughlin at 850-315-4435 or tmclaughlin@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomMnwfdn.
