The Environmental Protection Agency is being forced to backtrack on its findings of water contamination as a result of natural gas drilling in 3 different cases. Wall Street Journal: On Friday, the agency told a federal judge it withdrew an administrative order that alleged Range Resources Corp. had polluted water wells in a rural Texas county west of Fort Worth. Under an agreement filed in U.S. court in Dallas, the EPA will also drop the lawsuit it filed in January 2011 against Range, and Range will end its appeal of the administrative order. In addition to dropping the case in Texas, the EPA has agreed to substantial retesting of water in Wyoming after its methods were questioned. And in Pennsylvania, it has angered state officials by conducting its own analysis of well water-only to confirm the state's finding that water once tainted by gas was safe. Taken together, some experts say, these misfires could hurt the agency's credibility at a time when federal and state...(Read Full Post)