Vinod had bought services of a "public-relation management company" to address the issue of this negative PR that he had in regards with the Martin's Beach. That's where 500k number might have came from. Taken out of the air, just like 70% number?

And I wouldn't be surprised that this PR company would try to make a "hero" out of Vinod. And present him as a "hero, who is spending his own private money to support local surfers".

If you want to check facts, don't read blogs/potentially paid articles. Just go to the facts that a non-profit public foundation, created to protect our beaches provides. This foundation is generally spends its efforts on organizing beach cleanups. These are unambiguously good guys. In that case they've had to spend efforts on a lawsuit :(. Anyway, as a public non-profit they just don't have the ability to misrepresent facts or tell fat lies (unlike privately hired PR companies, layers or bloggers). So I'd just trust the facts as they put them:

http://www.surfrider.org/campaigns/entry/open-martins-beach#...

http://martinsbeach.blogspot.com/p/get-involved.html

http://martinsbeach.blogspot.com/