• FLOODS of '08 VIDEO
Downtown heating bills are in and the new high price for heat is leaving many businesses steamed.
Alliant’s steam plant heats much of downtown but it was damaged during the floods of oh-8. To fix the plant permanently would cost millions of dollars. So in the meantime Alliant brought in new temporary boilers to keep their customers warm. The new boilers run off of natural gas not coal like the ones before making it much more expensive.
Cedar rapids Masonic Temple just got their bill it's almost nine-thousand dollars for two months of steam heat.
“We were shocked when we received this. It didn’t hit us until you actually see the numbers,” says Kahn Phan, a board member for the Masonic temple.
Phan says normally they pay around $650 a month. Right now they only have about 10 thousand in the bank. That's barely enough to pay this new bill and they say it's certainly not enough to install a new heating system. Phan says that would cost around $150,000.
Nancy Craig, a spokeswoman for Alliant says they do not qualify for any sort of federal of state grants. Craig says it is up to the city to go and lobby for that money to fix the steam heat plant.Downtown CR Businesses Steamed
