The Bettendorf-based company that entered into a contract with Iowa City earlier this year to pick up trash at various city locations and buildings around town, including City Hall and the Iowa City/Johnson County Senior Center, has violated its agreement.

Assistant City Attorney Andy Matthews said that because Prairie Waste Service is not taking the garbage it removed to the Iowa City Landfill, officials likely will terminate the roughly $37,500 contract this week.

"The contract required them to dispose of the waste at the city's landfill, and we are not seeing them do that," Matthews said, adding that he sent a letter to Prairie Waste officials on July 23 informing them of their breech in the contract and giving them 10 days to "cure the default."

"That's probably up by now," Matthews said Monday. "We will figure out this week whether or not they've complied with the contract. If not, we have two options."

Because the two-year contract is new - the city requested bids from local companies in March and signed with Prairie Waste on July 1 - Matthews said officials can either offer the contract to the company that entered the next-lowest bid or re-submit the request for bids.

"More than likely we will re-bid it," Matthews said. "There was one company that did not bid on it because they could not bid online."

Officials with Hawkeye Waste Systems Inc. in Coralville, the company Iowa City contracted with to haul and dispose of solid waste from 2001 through June 31, said they were unaware the bidding process is now done on the city's Web site and did not submit a bid because they were not online.

Kevin Aunan, general manager with Hawkeye Waste, wrote in a July 22 e-mail to the Iowa City Council that "this problem has now been corrected, as evidenced by this e-mail."

Matthews said that re-bidding the contract would allow the city to consider more offers.

"I think we would get more competitive bids if we opened it up again," he said.

In his e-mail, Aunan said the city is losing money by contracting with Prairie Waste.

"The city is currently paying many thousands of dollars more for this service with Prairie Waste than they were paying with Hawkeye Waste," he said. According to the contracts, the city is paying Prairie Waste $1,562 per month for its service. In the previous agreement with Hawkeye Waste, the city paid $1,082 per month to pick up trash at more than 15 locations around town.

But Aunan said the contract violation is a more serious concern.

"...We have documented facts that show Prairie Waste is hauling this to their own landfill, one or two they own, in the Illinois Quad Cities," he said in the e-mail. "They are taking the city's money out of Johnson County and contributing nothing back in return."

Officials with Prairie Waste did not return phone calls Monday.

Matthews said the city contracts with an outside entity to haul solid waste from public trash receptacles around town because the city does not have the trucks necessary to provide the service.