Fernald wasn't the first site to be cleaned up. It didn't pose risks as large as Hanford or boast the 'most dangerous building in America' like Rocky Flats. And it certainly had its share of slipups—some avoidable, some inevitable. But Fernald's place in history is secure. More than anything else, it was the site where the Dept. of Energy's cleanup program began. It was at Fernald that DOE learned the hard way about the need for involving the local community and cut its teeth on a host of problems and challenges that it would later face at other sites, from worker transition issues and labor disputes to salvaging a damaged relationship with regulators and making the right technology decisions. There is no doubt that the protracted, and sometimes painful, resolution of issues at Fernald paved the way for more rapid success elsewhere in the weapons complex.
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