BEATRICE – The City of Beatrice has added another village customer to its Midwest Area Refuse Solutions hauling routes. The city council Monday night approved an agreement to provide garbage collection for Crab Orchard, in Johnson County.


"Their current hauler has dropped them and informed the village they were no longer going to provide service to them. Crab Orchard requested that MARS submit a bid...they ended up with three bids and Crab Orchard has decided to award the bid to the City of Beatrice. It's a five-year contract." City Administrator Tobias Tempelmeyer says the roughly 25 residents of the village will pay a rate of $18 a month, similar to the charge for surrounding village customers.


Councilman Duane Ruh has opposed recent additions to the coverage area of MARS.
"The thing is, I don't think that the citizens of Beatrice should be paying more for their garbage service, than we are charging these other cities...when you got to go out and pick it up. You've got more gas, you got three people on a truck....it's just not right."

Councilman Duane Ruh
Councilman Duane Ruh  

Ruh said he doesn’t care about retaining garbage hauling service to nearby villages if they pay less than Beatrice residents.


"If we can charge $16.50 to some other towns, $18 to a few others...then why isn't that where we are? We've got as many people outside of Beatrice paying $23...and probably more than they do."


Tempelmeyer says MARS already provides service to rural customers within a couple of miles of Crab Orchard. The agreement between the City of Beatrice and Crab Orchard was passed on a 6-2 vote…with Ruh and Councilman Tim Fralin voting no.