On good days, the Tiber Hudson tributary of the Patapsco is a
pleasant part of the scenery in Historic Ellicott City as it
flows through a stone channel by Tonge Row, beneath Tiber Alley
alongside Main Street and past the B&O Railroad Museum before it
spills into the river. It's a troubled waterway nonetheless, not
considered able to support life, paved over in spots and
surrounded by lots of asphalt. The urban and suburban
surroundings that drain into the Tiber Hudson — its "watershed"
— will be inspected early in December by teams of consultants
and volunteers as part of a continuing private, county and state
effort to improve the streams and rivers that ultimately flow
into the Chesapeake Bay. Focusing on areas some distance from
its channel, the crew of about 15 will spend four days driving
around, looking for possible pollution sources and ways to
better protect the Tiber Hudson. Technically, these two streams
that converge in the historic district are the defining feature
of a subwatershed, and not coun