intake valve

Officials are tracking the daily movements of the saline wedge, which was predicted to reach some of the city’s water intake valves by Thanksgiving.

The company told the agency in documents that defective intake valves generally fail early in a vehicle’s life, and most of the failures have already happened.

Ford said a design change in October 2021 changed the intake valve material to a different alloy.

There was even the risk that reservoir levels would fall so low, the water would no longer reach the intake valves that control the flow out of the lakes — essentially drying up the river downstream.

The Colorado River has fallen to such historic lows that officials said it could reach “dead pool” levels, or a point at which water falls below the lowest intake valve.