It ended far more quietly than it started and it left town with little more than a peep.
Regardless, the Prince George portion of the public hearings by the Joint Review Panel into the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline is, without question, the local news story of the year.
Whether for or against the $6.5-billion project to link the Alberta oilands to Kitimat, the hearings provided the opportunity for local residents to become fully educated on the ramifications of approving or rejecting the pipeline.
Anyone in the Prince George area who says they still don't understand what Enbridge is proposing is willfully ignorant.
Since the end of July, Citizen reporter Peter James has written more than 90 stories about the pipeline and, except for a couple of sessions that happened on a Friday night or Saturday, he was there for every minute of it. A Twitter fanatic, James sent about 10 tweets a day from the hearings as he sat through complicated testimony about engineering specifications and line-by-line examinations of technical reports.
For long stretches during the hearings, an appearance in the newsroom by James became so rare that reporters and editors jokingly asked him who he was when he did appear. His attendance at a morning story meeting was greeted with hearty applause and when he wasn't in the newsroom, because he was already in his seat at the hearings, waiting for the morning session to get started, his name and one word - pipeline - was all that went on the lineup schedule.
He would usually fire off an email during the morning break, explaining in point form what he saw as the main story and any secondary stories that he would file from the hearings.
Even residents who ignored the hearings can't escape their value to the local economy for the last two months. Every worker in the local hospitality sector directly or indirectly dealt with the members of the review panel, their support staff, media, witnesses, experts, lawyers, federal and provincial government officials, politicians and other participants in the process who came from near or far to take part.
The hotel bill for Northern Gateway alone was about $160,000 to pay for 1,200 room-nights at three local hotels. Add in the cost for everybody else that needed accommodation during the hearings and then throw in the cost for meals, rented vehicles and entertainment. The final contribution the hearings made to the local economy is somewhere past $1 million.
Prince Rupert will receive even more of a boost to its local economy next year, since the hearings there are expected to last even longer. During the busiest points of the Prince Rupert round of hearings, it won't be surprising if some of the participants will have to stay in Terrace, for lack of accommodation.
And then the long lull next summer and fall, as the panel members begin to draft a recommendation to the National Energy Board and the federal cabinet, with a deadline of Dec. 31, 2013.
The three-word recommendation is already apparent to anyone following the proceedings.
Yes, with conditions.
What the conditions are and whether they are significant enough for Enbridge to consider walking away from this project is what remains.
