Fishing industry's fight against offshore wind farms reaches far and wide

Off the coast of Montauk, New York is some of the most fertile fishing grounds in all of North America. It is an area that has been sustainably fished for over 400 years, feeding countless Americans along the way. It also happens to be an area where energy companies, some foreign-owned, are trying to install offshore wind farms.

Political agendas and lobbyist pull strings have put that sustainable fishing at risk. As a result, the Vineyard Wind project has embroiled generational fishermen into a lawsuit, and a battle for their own profession.

Roy Maynard of the Texas Public Policy Foundation says there has not even been proper checks and balances.

"Impact studies...environmental studies have not been done. No one is listening to the families out there fishing," he says.

The fisherman there typically uses trawler vessels, which drag netting along the sea floor. But this may impact longline fishers, and even lobstermen.

These offshore farms require three pieces to their puzzle, and can create major disruptions to the ecosystem, which again no one has even bothered to study.

"You have the onshore component, the turbine platform, then you have the feed lin...how are you getting that electricity back? You have to bury thousands of miles of offshore cables," he says.

Of course, all of those components spell issues for the seabed, and a disturbance in the fish ecosystem. But the problems only begin there.

"What else goes on the seabed? Trawler nets," he says.

Opponents say that fisherman can simply fish around it, which is not possible when there are turbine foundations, and cable lines run amok.

As mentioned too, this is only the tip of the iceberg of problems.

"They also pose hazards because they disrupt radar...not only for planes...but our long-range national security radar is disrupted, as well as radar for fisherman," he says.

All of this though boils down to government subsidies, where the power and energy generated goes to, instead of consumers themselves.

"They are int he business of developing energy for those subsidies...they are producing the facilities, which produce the energy...but the only economic model that works is massive subsidies," he says.

It all leaves the question of who will feed America? As of now, that is in the hands of a judge.