Arbor Day Celebration Recognizes Pittsfield Volunteer
  Workers planted five native red maples along the path to the Controy Pavilion as part of improvements to the lawn area at Onoto Lake. The tree pictured was dedicated to Beverly Mazurkiewicz. |
Mazurkiewicz moved to the city in 2001 from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., to be with her son, John, and his family. While hesitant at first, she began volunteering with the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, and always "came sharply dressed and ready to help," said RSVP President Arthur Stein.
She soon found herself reading to children at the Berkshire Athenaeum, guiding visitors at Arrowhead, working with the Berkshire Community Action Council and helping out at City Hall.
By the time she died at age 81 last Dec. 16, Mazurkiewicz had volunteered 518 hours of her time to RSVP.
"Her warm personality coupled with her vivacious sense of humor instantly drew people to her," said Stein. "But it was her simple philosophy of life to share love with others that truly endeared her to all she touched."
What better, he said, than a living memorial? And so a native red maple was planted in her honor on Friday, Arbor Day, alongside the road leading to the Controy Pavilion at Burbank Park, with dramatic sweep of Onota Lake in the background.
John J. Mazurkiewicz tossed some shovelfulls of dirt over the 10-foot-tall tree that will grow upwards of 70 feet high. A plaque in his mother's honor was placed at the base by Harbor Master James McGrath of the city's Parks and Recreation Department.
"It's awesome. She would have been thrilled," said John Mazurkiewicz, adding his mother would also have downplayed her accomplishments. "Of course, she would have poohed poohed the whole thing."
   Robert Race, top, of LOPA, talks about some of the projects under way at the lake. Above, Arthur Stein; Left, Harbor Master James McGrath, left, and John J. Mazurkiewicz before the tree dedication. |
While Mazurkiewicz didn't volunteeer at the park, it relies heavily on community help to remain attractive and usable.
Robert Race, president of the nonprofit Lake Onota Preservation Association, keynote speaker at the Arbor Day celebration, said LOPA members had volunteered will over a 1,000 hours at the lake, hand pulling water chestnuts from the water, deploying and retrieving boating buoys, monitoring the water quality of the lake and its tributaries, participating in the annual park cleanup and keeping members and the community abreast of what's happening at the lake through its Guardian newsletter.
An earlier incarnation of the group created a diagnostic and feasibility study that has become the baseline for the city's preservation efforts at the public park. LOPA re-emerged as a volunteer group in the 1990s and acquired its 501(c)3 nonprofit status in 2003.
Through collaborations with the city and the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, it has applied for and received some $600,000 in preservation grants.
It recently received, with the city, a $269,000 so-called 319 Grant, through the Clean Water Act. The matched with city funding and volunteer hours by LOPA, the total amount comes to more than $400,000.
Race said the money will be used to double the outflow of the dam to provide for more flexible control of the water drawdown on the lake and completion of a stormwater drainage system started through another grant.
It will also be used to shore up the banking south of the swimming pavilion, which is being eroded by natural waves and motorboats. "It wouldn't be long before that beautiful walkway would be shoreline, and we wouldn't want that to happen," he said.
The fourth aspect of the grant will be community outreach through the establishment of a Web site. Race said the project's been under way for a few years but the group really needed professional help to get it up and running. LOPA hopes to launch the site by Memorial Day.
With Arbor Day in mind, Race said the trees surrounding the 617-acre lake were significant to its preservation. The watershed, the higher elevation draining into the lake, is 10 times its size, or about 10 square miles.
"Our watershed is a fairly heavily forested watersehd," said Race. "That's fortunate for us. Trees absorb and filter the nutrient rich runoff that would be running into the lake, so we're lucky to have a forested watershed."
Beyond that, the forested hills increase the scenic beauty, a view that Mayor James Ruberto extolled earlier at the event, he said.
"It really is indentified with the lake," said Race. "The city, I'm very pleased to say, has recognized that factor and indeed included the viewscape along with water quality and other impacts as important factors to be considered during the development of the watershed."
