MIAMI -- Is South Florida's tap water as safe as bottled water? Is one neighborhood's water better than another? NBC 6 set out to find out.

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South Florida Tap Water Test

"I don't know what you'll find," Coral Gables homeowner Melvin Ransom told the NBC 6 investigative team.

NBC 6 took samples from a dozen neighborhoods served by different water systems to STL Labs in Miramar, one of the nation's top testing facilities. They did 126 tests on each sample, plus tests on three bottled waters.

"(With) tap water you just don't know what you're getting." said Miami Beach aerobics instructor Becca Monroe.

Like many, Monroe never drinks tap water.

"Bottled water tastes cleaner, tastes fresher. Tap water tastes dirty to me," Monroe said

So people spend a buck or so on a bottle. At $2 a day, that's roughly $700 a year, while you're already paying for your tap water.

How many times more expensive is a $1 bottle of water than a glass of tap water? Ten times? One hundred? Try 4,266 times more expensive, NBC 6 discovered.

For the same price consumers pay for a single serving bottle of water, they could buy enough tap water to fill a 666-gallon tank, NBC 6 discovered.

Water managers like Miami-Dade's Tom Segars and North Miami Beach's Kelvin Baker are even bottling their tap water to try and get the word out.

"That the water from the tap is okay to drink! It's healthy!" said Baker.

In fact 25 percent of all bottled waters now sold are actually tap water, filtered to varying degrees, NBC 6 reported. For example, inside the Coca-Cola plant in Hollywood, they bottle regionally-distributed Dasani -- which is Hollywood tap water further purified and enhanced.

All municipal water systems are required to test constantly. Annual results are, by law, mailed to everyone who pays a water bill. Even minute problems are also reported to the Environmental Protection Agency. Consumers can access them online. Any violations and corrective actions for neighborhood water systems -- hundreds of them in South Florida, right down to individual buildings -- are available on the Web site.

NBC 6 did the same tests the government requires, including testing for arsenic, lead, mercury, vinyl chloride, cyanide, chlorine, fluoride, chemicals from farms and factories, power plants, roads and backyard polluters, and more.

NBC 6 asked Sarah Serrano, the head of STL Labs about the results of the tap water samples NBC 6 collected, including whether there were any concerns about the safety of the water in any municipalities.

"It's very safe," Serrano said. "It's as safe as the bottled water."

The NBC 6 investigation revealed all the samples were safe..

Did STL find anything that alarmed their staff of experts?

Serrano said, "No. None."

The sample from Deerfield Beach caught NBC 6's attention. A by-product of chlorine, trihalomethane, which is linked to cancer, was slightly above government standards. It was enough to bring Deerfield Beach's top water person to take another sample. Results showed no continuing problem.

Homeowner Barbara Bennett wasn't fazed.

"I'd rather not trust tap water."

Some bottled water drinkers believe tap water tastes, looks or smells different. Believe it or not, they have high tech machines to measure that.

All the tap water samples NBC 6 tested were well within government standards, and comparable to bottled water we tested.

Some people swear they can tell the difference. So NBC 6 served Zephyrhills Spring Water, Dasani purified water and tap water, and asked people to pick the tap.

"That's the tap water right there," said one taste test volunteers certain she'd picked the tap water sample in the blind taste test.

One third of the participants were able to identify the tap water -- the same rate as a random guess.

The aerobics instructor was the only person to correctly identify all three samples.

"I told you I could tell!" Monroe said.

For more information on STL Labs, visit NBC6.net Newslinks.