​The Chesapeake Bay Program is a cooperative effort involving all the jurisdictions in the Chesapeake watershed, with the goal of reducing nutrient and sediment pollution and ultimately removing the Chesapeake Bay from the federal Clean Water Act’s list of impaired waters. Pennsylvania plays a critical role in this effort, as fifty percent of the fresh water to the Chesapeake Bay flows from the Susquehanna River.

The Chesapeake Bay 2000 agreement was a significant multi-state and federal partnership aimed at cleaning up and restoring the Chesapeake Bay. It included the goal of developing locally supported watershed management plans in two-thirds of the Bay watershed, addressing the conservation of stream corridors, riparian forest buffers, and wetlands.
In 2003, Chesapeake Bay Program partners developed and agreed to new water quality criteria and new nutrient and sediment reduction goals, which led to the creation of revised Nutrient and Sediment Reduction Tributary Strategies. These strategies utilized a “bottom-up” approach, sub-allocating cap loads to smaller tributaries and delegating funds for non-point pollution control and habitat restoration accordingly.

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Since 2005, as part of the updated DEP Tributary Strategy, each county has been required to develop a County Implementation Plan. These plans redirect goals and efforts toward Best Management Practices that are lower in cost and easier to design and install. This approach allows conservation districts to work with many more landowners on smaller practices, rather than focusing on a few large projects, thereby providing assistance to a larger number of landowners.
​The current overarching goal, as part of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement signed in 2014, is to achieve significant water quality improvements by 2025. This involves coordinated actions among federal, state, and local partners to restore and protect the Chesapeake Bay.