Six years after Hurricane Juan swept over P.E.I., an administrative mess that almost denied Charlottetown $200,000 in federal aid has been cleared up.

'In the end it turned out we were right, and that was great.'— Scott Ryan, finance manager

At issue was $200,000 worth of repairs to a seawall on West Street. The seawall is on private property but the repairs were done to protect city-owned sewage pipes. The city was prohibited from spending the Ottawa money on private property, and the federal government had initially rejected the expenditure.

"A lot of people when they are dealing with, whether you want to call it Goliath or the federal government, do say 'OK they must be right,' and accept the information at face value and don't investigate it any further," said city finance manager Scott Ryan.

"In the end it turned out we were right, and that was great."

The $200,000 would have represented about 10 per cent of the total aid received by the city for disaster aid from Ottawa.

"Two hundred thousand dollars is a significant amount of money for the City of Charlottetown," said finance committee chair Coun. Cecil Villard.

"We were very, very pleased with the outcome."

Ryan said the fight with Ottawa was useful because it helped clarify eligibility requirements for when something like Juan happens again.