The Augusta Commission was set to approve a change order Tuesday that would have added 17,000 new customers to the nearly 23,000 customers approved in May to be added to city trash routes.

But a July 2 letter from an Atlanta law firm hired to represent BFI has delayed expanding the service even more.

Commissioners voted 9-0 to rebid the additional garbage pickup contracts, in lieu of approving a change order. The rebidding process will take until January, six months after the Aug. 3 start-up date for other newly added areas.

''It's going to happen,'' said District 8 Commissioner Ulmer Bridges. ''It's just not going to happen as soon as we'd hoped.''

Mr. Bridges' entire district, which was scheduled to be added to the city-run service, was lopped out to avoid the lawsuit.

In May, Augusta commissioners voted to expand city-managed trash collection outside the former city limits and into suburban subdivisions east of Bobby Jones Expressway and north of Deans Bridge and Lumpkin roads, to about 23,000 new customers.

But in recent weeks, commissioners and public works officials have been working to extend service even farther to an additional 17,000 customers, including those in the areas of Meadowbrook Drive and Windsor Spring, Tobacco, Golden Camp, Willis Foreman and Peach Orchard roads.

Several neighborhoods off Jimmie Dyess and Augusta West parkways also were scheduled to be grouped into pickup.

But in a letter of protest filed with the city Monday, BFI argued that the city was adding nearly 50 percent more homes to the garbage collection contract, violating competitive bidding procedures required by law.

''BFI's bid may have been significantly lower if all of these (areas) were properly bid out competitively ... in the first place,'' the letter said.

The lawsuit affects homeowners in District 3 west of Bobby Jones Expressway; in District 5 south of Gordon Highway, and in all of Districts 4 and 8.

''In hindsight we should have bid out the entire county and then gone back and eliminated areas,'' City Administrator George Kolb said.

Although no formal notification has been sent to neighborhoods that were to be included in the change order areas, some homeowners might still be under the false impression that trash service is coming their way: Anyone who called the city's Department of Public Works, the Augusta Cares hot line or their city commissioner might have been told that they were getting government-run garbage pickup.

''We were on track to do it,'' said Public Works Director Teresa Smith. ''The problem was the magnitude of the change to the contract became too large for us to make the change order.''

Homeowners slated to start receiving city garbage pickup will be notified in this month's water bills. The city will start working next week to help eliminate any added confusion Tuesday's decision might create, Mr. Kolb sad.

''In the short term there's going to be a whole lot of confusion,'' he said. ''This change order situation will just compound it.''

Reach Heidi Coryell at (706) 823-3215.