If you look at the water balancing valve setting you'll see a painted white line indicating the valve is at "about 2 o'clock" when it should be pointing to 12 o'clock.  The closed position is at 3 o'clock.

The engineer overestimated how much resistance existed within the water system.  When the resistance isn't there, the TAB person must introduce resistance to get the water flow right.  In other words, the engineer has his foot on the gas and the balancer has his foot on the brake.