When I wrote Thursday's post on discredited oil-spill-capper Blake Mastin, I was still waiting for a callback from Fargo city officials on whether a Mastin-designed device had stopped a water main break during the 2009 floods.

KSTP had reported this as fact; KARE stated the National Guard had used Mastin's design in Valley City, an hour west of Fargo. However, the Pioneer Press' Jessica Fleming got the Guard's denial; a Fargo city engineer "had not heard of Mastin or his design."

Since Fargo has other engineers, that left the door ever-so-slightly ajar that Mastin's tale was real. But I just got off the phone with Karena Carlson, the city's communication manager, who says she has now canvassed three engineers, including the one who "worked with all new devices during the flood," and "none had ever heard of him or his device."

(Carlson says the only new technology used to fight the flood were HESCO barriers, which were used in Iraq.)

KSTP, which bought Mastin's claims to the BP cap, has attempted to correct the record on-air and news director Lindsay Radford minced no words about mistakes in Thursday's post.

However, KARE — which stated Mastin had a "proven track record" based on the North Dakota experience — did not want to answer questions about whether it confirmed that judgment. But Fargo's newly buttressed denial, combined with the Guard's earlier one, is yet another sign something's amiss. Unless KARE has found something Fleming and I haven't, they owe viewers a correction.

Here's the station's June 15 story: