Last week, Santa Rosa County announced the locations of five recycling sites where residents can dispose of their live Christmas trees. The trees must be taken to the site by Monday, Feb. 28. Residents are asked to place trees in the designated area identified by signage and not in front of the recycling containers. The sites include:

• Tiger Point recreation area in Gulf Breeze, east of WalMart
• Quintette recycle area at the Five Points Intersection
• Gulf Power recycle area on East Spencer Field Road
• Clean Community System on Park Avenue
• Jay Transfer Station on Transfer Station Road

The trees will be chipped and offered as free mulch at Clean Community System in Milton at a later date to be announced.

In addition to announcing the sites for tree disposal, county officials urged residents to not cut up and burn their trees in a home fireplace, as burning evergreens release tar and creosol, which can ignite and cause a chimney fire.

Residents are reminded that recycle areas are not disposal areas for furniture or household garbage that is not sorted recyclable material. Santa Rosa County recycle sites accept glass, metal, plastic containers, paper and cardboard. A list of all of Santa Rosa County’s recycling points and accepted materials can be found online at www.santarosa.fl.gov/recycle.

Navarre may be almost a continent away from Hollywood, but that doesn’t mean that the movie-making industry doesn’t have roots in the sandy shores of Santa Rosa Sound.

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The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has announced that the harvest of blue crabs from traps will not be allowed from Jan. 5 through Jan. 14 in all waters from Franklin County west to the Florida-Alabama border, except the waters of the Ochlockonee River and Ochlockonee Bay. These areas are being closed to allow authorized groups the opportunity to identify and retrieve lost and abandoned blue crab traps from the coastal and inland waters in the area.

All commercial and recreational blue crab traps within three nautical miles from shore and in the inland waters of the affected areas must be removed before the start of the 10-day closed period.

The harvest of blue crabs by other gear, such as dip nets and fold-up traps, will still be permitted during the 10-day closure. Blue crab harvesters may also use standard blue crab traps if the traps are attached to private property.

For more information regarding the trap-retrieval program, closure dates, regulations and how volunteers can participate in cleanup events, visit MyFWC.com/Rules (click on “Fishing – Saltwater”), or contact the FWC trap-retrieval coordinator Kyle Miller at 850-487-0554.

2010 news coated by BP oil spill

The tropical weather season spared Northwest Florida from major storm damage for a fifth straight year, but 2010’s top story did involve a disaster — this one manmade.

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