Assistance program
Geographic Programs - Chesapeake Bay Program
$534.3 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Protection Agency
- Assistance
- Project Grants
- CFDA number
- 66.466
- What it does
- The Chesapeake Bay is a national treasure and unique as North America's largest and most biologically diverse estuary. The objective of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s assistance agreements is to fund activities that support achievement of the goals and outcomes of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement. Funding priorities include, but are not limited to, implementation projects that support water quality improvement and environmental stewardship, coordination of the Chesapeake Bay Program partnership, monitoring of water quality and living resources of the Chesapeake Bay, and advancement of data science that helps inform decision-making. EPA supports advancement of these priorities by funding cooperative agreements for the following grant programs: 1) Technical and general assistance grants, which support the partnership in carrying out the watershed agreement; 2) Small Watershed Grants (SWG), which support protection and improvement of local waterways while building citizen-based resource stewardship; and 3) Innovative Nutrient and Sediment Reduction (INSR) grants, which support regional innovative solutions to reduce or eliminate nutrient and sediment pollution. Ensuring that the Program’s benefits are distributed equitably and increasing climate resiliency are special areas of focus for the partnership. More information regarding the Chesapeake Bay Program can be found at https://www.chesapeakebay.net/ .
- Who benefits
- Beneficiary eligibility is the same as applicant eligibility.
- Who applies
- Under section 117(d), funds are available for technical and general assistance grants to nonprofit organizations, State, tribal (federally-recognized) and local governments, colleges, universities, and interstate agencies; and under section 117(g)(2), funds are available for technical assistance and assistance grants under the Small Watershed Grants Program to local governments and nonprofit organizations and individuals in the Chesapeake Bay region. For certain competitive funding opportunities under this assistance listing, the Agency may limit eligibility to compete to a number or subset of eligible applicants consistent with the Agency's Assistance Agreement Competition Policy.
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments