Bell Atlantic Awards Brooklyn/Staten Island Employee Team Its Environmental Excellence Award

Bell Atlantic Awards Brooklyn/Staten Island Employee Team Its
Environmental Excellence Award

Winners to be Honored at Earth Week Celebration

April 16, 1999

NEW YORK -- A team of Bell Atlantic employees based in Brooklyn and
Staten Island, will receive the company's fourth annual John S. Balaguer
Environmental Excellence Award in the Employee -- Bell Atlantic
Activities category for an idea that is saving millions of gallons of water.

The Chiller System Program team of six employees recognized a need and
adapted a cooling system to use and reuse anti-freeze instead of millions of
gallons of water to keep air compressors working properly in the
company's central offices. These compressors are essential in the
prevention of major cable failures to keep Bell Atlantic customers in
service.

The company award, which honors significant environmental
achievements of Bell Atlantic suppliers and employees, will be presented
at 10 a.m. April 21 during an Earth Week celebration at Bell Atlantic's
headquarters, 1095 Avenue of the Americas. (Media representatives are
welcome.)

Bell Atlantic's central offices, 22 in Brooklyn and Staten Island alone,
require the use of air compressors to keep telephone cables dry and
working properly. Prior to the work of the Chiller System team, each
compressor required one gallon of water per minute to keep cool-that's
millions of gallons of water each year, which could not be reused.

"I'd like to extend my thanks and congratulations to the employees on this
team, who have stepped up to the challenge that this award represents,"
said Bell Atlantic Chairman and CEO Ivan G. Seidenberg. "As a result of
their perseverance and motivation, they are helping us to care for our
customers and our environment every day."

Since January 1997, the team has converted seven central offices to a
"closed loop" system that reuses anti-freeze instead of water. The team
plans to convert five more by the end of 1999. So far, this initiative has
reduced water usage by a third and lowered cost by $108,000 per year.

The members of the team are: Serge Catoire, Mario Frangella, Scott
Lunden, Michael Mooney, John Walters and Christopher Weber.

The John S. Balaguer Environmental Excellence Award is named in honor
of the first director of Environmental Issues at the former NYNEX
Information Resources Co., who was a pioneer in recycling phone
directories. Balaguer is nationally credited with recognizing early on that
environmental leadership is a corporate responsibility. This award
recognizes significant environmental achievement consistent with Bell
Atlantic's corporate environmental policy.

In addition to the Chiller System Team, Bell Atlantic named Steven
Putman, of Bryantown, Md., as the Balaguer award winner in the
Employee--Community Activities category. Putman is being honored for
his role in restoring 545 acres of wetlands in Bowie, Md. The company
also named NEC Eluminant Technologies, Inc., of Herndon, Va., to
receive the supplier category award for its product that allows Bell
Atlantic to meet increased customer demand without having to clear land
to build additional facilities.

Editors note: Reporters interested in attending the awards celebration
should call Sharon Beadle at 212-395-1802. Photographs of the
winners will be available after the event.

Bell Atlantic is at the forefront of the new communications and
information industry. With more than 42 million telephone access lines
and 8.6 million wireless customers worldwide, Bell Atlantic companies
are premier providers of advanced wireline voice and data services, market
leaders in wireless services and the world's largest publishers of directory
information. Bell Atlantic companies are also among the world's largest
investors in high-growth global communications markets, with operations
and investments in 23 countries.