Fishing Point Ethanol Loading/Unloading Facility

First Major Ethanol Offloading in Maryland

Century provided the civil engineering and master planning services for the rail yard and determined the limits/scope of phasing to allow for rapid permitting for Phase I. This approach allowed the client to be the first major rail ethanol offloading operation in the state of Maryland.

Phases I and II

As part of Phase I of the master development plan implementation, Century designed a rail yard for onsite storage of 80 ethanol railcars and a runaround track. This project required preparation of rail yard construction drawings and processing of a Baltimore City Building Permit. Extensive communication and coordination were required since the project also impacted adjoining owners as well as other users of the CSX owned track leading to the site. We also successfully processed a CSX sidetrack agreement and thereafter assisted the owner with obtaining bids as well as provided construction period monitoring and quality control. As part of Phase II of the master development plan implementation, Century designed railcar storage tracks onsite for an additional 40 railcars and an onsite railcar offloading facility that has the capacity for 20 railcars at a time (10 on each side of the offloading rack). This increased the railcar storage to 120 railcars. Phase II also involved dedicated ethanol transfer lines from the 20-car offloading rack over the neighboring CITGO tanks. These tanks are under a long-term lease agreement for use by U.S. Development.

Geotechnical

Test borings were drilled to investigate the subsurface conditions for each of the proposed structures. Some areas of the site were found to have deposits of very soft alluvial clays. Evaluation of the most suitable type of foundation for the various structures included settlement analysis for shallow foundations and negative skin friction on pile foundations caused by the fill surcharge and railcar loadings.