The racking configuration of billiard balls for 9-Ball, a game in which the players sequentially shoot balls. Sinking all of the balls in succession is the feat of "running the table" and winning a game. Photograph Attribution: SMcCandlish, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Our Senior Reviewers exercise a lot of freedom in sponsoring team reviews or commenting independently on projects within their area of technical expertise. Many of our Senior Reviewers are subject matter experts and may identify and comment on specialized or niche topics that are not widely understood or addressed by environmental oversight agencies and single handedly effect environmental protection on the city, county, state, interstate, or national levels. I call this "running the table" a phrase borrowed from billiards which describes shooting in all balls on the table, one after another, in succession (esp. 9-ball).

For example, I routinely monitor environmental agency calendars for the specialized topic of dioxins contamination. My comments on this topic may point out: 1) dioxins compounds are known byproducts in the manufacture of pentachlorophenol; 2)  dioxins are highly toxic, bio-accumulative, and the colloidal transport mechanism (dioxins latching onto small organic or mineral particles which may freely migrate in aquifer matrices) may be significant due to its high toxicity; 3) the World Health Organization (WHO) published toxicity equivalence factors (TEFs) guidance to calculate a single toxicity summation  to a benchmark compound (2,3,7, 8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin) which is useful for comparison to screening values; 4) dioxins have extremely low screening values and enforceable standards; 5) laboratory methods commonly employed for dioxins analysis may fail to achieve detection limits which allow for meaningful comparison to screening values; 6) a high performance laboratory method is available but infrequently employed (USEPA Method 8290 - high performance gas chromatography/high performance mass spectroscopy). With this specialized technical information, I am able to monitor environmental calendars of the agencies for public comment periods state-by-state, region-by-region, federal, and international levels to quickly screen and identify projects with potential dioxins contamination issues (e.g. wood treatment, paper plants, or other industries). That way, I can rapidly provide substantive comments for many sites across a broad geographical area.

This manner of broad geographic range commenting on targeted issues is a type of commenting that I call "running the table". We encourage our Senior Reviewers to "run the table" as subject matter experts for topics within their area of expertise and specialized knowledge (e.g. chemistry, physics, environmental fate and transport, toxicology, regulation, new and emerging contaminants, tentatively identified compounds, etc.) to single handedly effect enhanced protection for human health and the environment on the local, regional, national, and international levels. So as we say in the pool hall: "rack 'em!".