BEAVER SPRINGS -- Where once officials were fighting the arrival of a drug and alcohol treatment center, supervisors in two western Snyder County municipalities are now arguing over whose township Firetree Ltd.'s facility will be located.

The bureaucratic rift has delayed the hiring of up to 30 workers for the Williamsport-based chemical abuse treatment facility, said Allen Ertel, the company's executive committee chairman.

"We feel very bad for (people who applied last year) because we could have had a fairly sizeable number of those people employed," Ertel said. "Because of the delay, we've lost a couple of senior people who live in the area, who were going to manage the facility."

Supervisors in Spring and Beaver townships are battling over where Firetree's property -- including the former Beaver-Adams Elementary School along Route 522 -- sits.

"It's been an ongoing thing since it's come out there," Spring Township Supervisor Dale Bishop said.

A small piece of the property on the east side is in Beaver Township, Bishop said, but the majority of the property is in Spring.

"They think there's tax money involved," Bishop said of Beaver Township officials. While real estate taxes probably will not be an issue because Firetree is a nonprofit organization, occupational taxes will be received by the township in which the land is located.

"Our solicitor told (Beaver Township officials) if they want to know exactly where it is, they should have it surveyed," Bishop said.

That has yet to happen. Should Beaver Township contest the issue, it has to pay for the land survey, which is costly.

The previous owner of the property paid his taxes in Spring Township, Bishop said.

Beaver Township officials did not reply to two messages left on their secretary's voice mail last week.

"They keep raising the issue, delaying approvals," said Ertel, the Firetree official. "Just that issue alone has held us up."

What Ertel finds most interesting is the change in attitude among township officials.

"These people were fighting to keep us out," he said. "Now they're fighting to keep us in."

His company will continue to renovate the building, and plans to open in mid- to late June, he said.