Wheeling, W.Va. (WTRF) – The Wheeling Park Commission has just entered into a partnership with EQT Corporation for a brand new forestry management program at Oglebay.

The goal of the project is to ensure the natural areas remain healthy and sustainable, as well as generate carbon offsets. Carbon offsets refer to methods, like planting trees, that store carbon in one area to compensate for carbon being present in other areas.

The project will cover 1000 acres of forest land, and will use technology from a company called Teralytic to analyze how the project is working to increase the health of the soil.

“They will come in and remove invasive species, for example. And they will look for areas, do we need to thin out trees, do we need to replant trees, and they will look for ways to make our forestry areas, essentially healthy.”

BETH WHITEHOUSE, Senior Director of Strategic Planning at Oglebay

Along with the project, EQT also partnered with Wheeling Country Day School to create an education program for the students to learn about monitoring soil health, giving them access to see real time changes in soil 24 hours a day.