SALEM — The utilities commissioners discussed the possible construction of a habitat to combat declining populations of a native bird species at the East Cold Run Reservoir.

During the commission’s meeting Monday Interim Parks Director Kelli Pastore said that she had been contacted by the Beaver Creek Wildlife Center about possibly constructing a chimney swift tower at the reservoir. Pastore explained that the Wildlife Center had received a grant to build 12 towers across Columbiana County, and that the construction of the tower would come at no cost to the department.

“They construct them, they do all the maintenance on them every year, they clean them out, everything. The parks [department and utilities department] wouldn’t have to do anything,” said Pastore.

Chimney swifts, a type of small, insect-eating bird native to the eastern United States, originally nested in hollow old growth trees, but pressure from deforestation and habitat encroachment caused them to begin nesting primarily within man-made structures and masonry chimneys. However, as construction trends have moved away from the types of chimneys suitable for their nesting and capping chimneys has become increasingly common, populations of chimney swifts have declined, and while not designated as endangered, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service has declared them a “Bird of Conservation Concern” and “a Species of Greatest Conservation Need in 22 states.”

“They moved into chimneys because they’re safe from predators and the elements there, but now people are capping their chimneys, so the number of chimney swifts are in danger. So, they’re trying to raise the population of the birds by building towers,” said Pastore.

Pastore said that the towers are approximately 12 feet tall and stand on a roughly 2-foot-tall base, for a total height of 14 feet. The interiors of the towers are hollow, allowing the swifts to hang and roost inside, building half-saucer nests out of twigs and saliva.

Utilities Commission Chairman Bob Hodgson asked Water Plant Manager Larry Sebrell for his thoughts on the possible tower, and he said that he had no issue with it but that with recent treefalls in the area, they would need to be cautious when choosing where to place the tower.

Pastore said that the tower would need to be positioned somewhere with room for the swift’s unique flight pattern when entering the shelter to roost for the night and ideally be somewhere that people could watch.

“Somewhere that’s flat and that there’s not a lot of trees really close because they do this crazy pattern when they come in for the night and its big and they all one by one zoom down in that chimney, so they need to have a path to be able to land in there,” said Pastore. “So, if you’re looking at the reservoir probably not to the right because there are a lot of trees over there … we’d like to keep it closer, maybe even on the edge of the parking lot so in the evenings people can watch them fly in there for the night.”

Pastore also said that swifts, which can eat more than 1000 flying insects each day and up to 12,000 insects each day when roosting could help manage insect populations.

The commissioners ultimately agreed that if the project was coordinated with Sebrell and Utilities Superintendent Butch Donnalley “so that if there was a conflict [the department] can work through it,” they didn’t see any issue with building the tower.

The utilities commission will meet next at 3 p.m. Feb. 20.