Bion Announces Appointment of Chief Operating Officer.

Business Editors/Technology Writers

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 13, 2003

Bion Environmental Technologies, Inc. (OTCBB:BNET)(PHLX:BNO) announced today the appointment of Salvatore J. Zizza to the positions of President and Chief Operating Officer, effective immediately.

Mr. Zizza's duties will include overall management of system construction, as well as identifying and negotiating with potential strategic partners. Mr. Zizza will hold the positions on an interim basis (one year), while the Company transitions from research and development to commercialization, after which a permanent President and COO will be named.

Mr. Zizza received his BA and MBA from St. John's University. He was the President, COO and CFO of NICO Construction Company, Inc., the nation's largest interior construction firm, when it was acquired by LVI Group, Inc. in 1985. He held the positions of Chairman and CEO of LVI Group through 1997, when he became the Chairman of Hallmark Electrical Supplies Corp.

Mr. Zizza is a Director of the following Gabelli funds: Asset, Convertible Securities, Equity Trust, Global Multimedia Trust, Growth, and Utility. He also serves on the Boards of a number of public and private companies. Mr. Zizza is currently a member of Bion's Board of Directors and will remain in that position.

David Mitchell, Bion's CEO, stated: "We are very pleased to have Mr. Zizza join our team as we move forward with the commercialization, marketing and installation of the Bion NMS(TM) technology. The upcoming Fair Oaks, Devries, and California State, Fresno dairy projects, as well as additional projects we anticipate in the coming year, represent a significant undertaking in terms of construction. Mr. Zizza's years of management and construction industry experience will be a valuable asset during this transitional period."

About Bion: Founded in 1989, Bion provides waste management solutions to agriculture, focusing on livestock waste from confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), such as large dairy and hog farms. The Bion NMS is a proprietary and patented waste treatment system that remediates animal waste in a manner that is both economical and consistent with existing and proposed environmental regulatory requirements. The Bion NMS achieves a 98% reduction of ammonia discharged to the atmosphere coupled with very low (to frequently undetectable) levels of VOCs, hydrogen sulfide and the greenhouse gases (methane and nitrogen oxides), as well as an 80%, or greater, reduction of nutrients (phosphorous, nitrogen and potassium) in the water effluent.

Due to its platform design, Bion's NMS is capable of generating revenue not only from the products and services it produces (waste removal, soil production and potentially environmental credits), but also from supplementary technologies that can be integrated into the platform such as anaerobic digestion, which produces energy, and membrane filtration, which produces reusable water.

This material includes forward-looking statements based on management's current reasonable business expectations. In this document, the words "capable," "will," "upcoming," "anticipate," "potential," and similar expressions identify certain forward-looking statements. These statements are made in reliance on the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, Section 27A of the Securities act of 1933, as amended. There are numerous risks and uncertainties that could result in actual results differing materially from expected outcomes. The material should be read in conjunction with the Company's current annual and quarterly reports filed with the SEC, which contain discussions of currently known factors that could significantly impact the Company's future expectations.