Russian Exchange Students to Set Sail With New York City High Schoolers to Study Environment

Russian Exchange Students to Set Sail With New York City High Schoolers to Study Environment

Will Compare Hudson River with Russia's Don River
Aboard the Sloop Clearwater

April 14, 1998

NEW YORK -- Exchange students from Russia and two New York City high
schools, who have been working together for the past year on global
environmental issues, will take the helm aboard a 106-foot sloop on
Saturday, April 18, to study the Hudson River and its marine life.

The students--16 from Lyceum High School in Rostov on Don, Russia, and
14 from the High School for Environmental Studies in Manhattan and
John F. Kennedy High School in the Bronx--will spend three hours on
the Clearwater, a sailing vessel that serves as a floating classroom
and environmental laboratory. The voyage will begin at Bear Mountain

State Park.

During the sail the students, who are part of a year-long exchange,
will gather samples of river life for study, hoist the sails and
discuss the environmental concerns of our waterways, such as PCB
contamination. Last November, the New York students visited their
Russian counterparts and conducted similar research on the banks of
the Don River. The students will take the information they gather on
this voyage and compare it with the information collected in Russia.

Bell Atlantic is sponsoring the Clearwater voyage as its primary
"Earth Week" initiative. "Earth Week" is the unofficial name for the
week that comprises Earth Day-April 22-when individuals,
organizations, and corporations worldwide show their support for the
environment through various activities and educational events.

Clearwater is the centerpiece of a public environmental education
program conceived in 1996 by Pete Seeger, Grammy-award winning folk
musician.

"Clearwater is the perfect vehicle for bringing to life the
environmental research these students have been executing all year,"
said Michael O'Herlihy, chairperson, Science Department at the New
York City High School for Environmental Studies. "Thanks to the
initiative of Bell Atlantic, students from two sides of the world will
enjoy a unique learning experience and may discover practical solutions
to global concerns."

The Russian exchange students arrived in New York April 3, and are
staying with their American hosts until April 25. They will jointly
present the results of their Hudson River experiments. Once the
Russian students return home, they will continue to work with the
American students via computers to complete a comparison study of the
two rivers.

"Bell Atlantic has been an active supporter of Clearwater for a number
of years and has been working with the High School for Environmental
Studies for the past two years," said John Halenar, Associate
Director, Environmental Issues, Bell Atlantic Yellow Pages Company.
"It seemed like a perfect fit-to kick off Earth Week by bringing the
two groups together."

Bell Atlantic is also a major sponsor of the Clearwater Great Hudson
River Revival music festival to be held in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., in
June.

NOTE TO EDITORS: The group will be departing from Bear Mountain State
Park dock at 2 p.m., Saturday April 18. Space is limited. If you are
interested in accompanying the group or sending a photographer, call
Sharon Beadle on 212-395-1802 by noon, Thurs., April 16.

The Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc., celebrating its 30-year
anniversary, conducts environmental education, advocacy programs and
celebrations to protect the Hudson River, its tributaries and related
bodies of water. Its purpose is to create awareness of the estuary's
complex relationship with the coastal zone, identify environmental
concerns and raise money to address those concerns. Clearwater has
recently sent a group of professionals and volunteers to St. Petersburg,
Russia, to guide them in creating a similar organization there.
Information about Clearwater is available at http://www.clearwater.org.

Bell Atlantic - formed through the merger of Bell Atlantic and NYNEX -
is at the forefront of the new communications and information
industry. With 40.5 million telephone access lines and six 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 21 countries.