Chesapeake Energy Corp. (NYSE: CHK) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made the smart move by teaming up on the agency’s study of possible impacts to water quality by hydraulic fracturing, a legal expert said.

By working together, Chesapeake gets to ensure the EPA gets the data right. The EPA benefits by not running into brick walls when it needs answers, Tracy Hester, a professor and director of the University of Houston Law Center’s Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Center, told Hart.

The EPA will select the testing site in ...