Thus far my experiment has yielded the following:  60% rooted from the city water, 90% from the well and 80% from the distilled water.  I had zero mold issues with the well or distilled water.  After my initial issue with mold on the city water, I think that mold was probably present on the cuttings before I started.  The roots were better develped on the well water and least from the distilled.  I think the chemicals in the city water definitely are a factor in rooting cuttings.  That is the results of my test.  All cuttings were kept at 75 degrees inside my greenhouse, inside zip bags wrapped in wet paper towels.  I also placed a group directly into Perlite and just watered them and had better root development with these cuttings vs the ones placed in the zip bags.  Next part of the test will see how growth development is affected by the different types of water.

this year, my first year doing spring rooting, i had zero mold issue. i'm using my local city water. i washed the cuttings with anti-bacterial soap, then soaked it in 10% bleach for about 30 sec. i made sure i scrubbed the cutting with tooth brush rather hard with soap.

last fall, i had few mold issues. however, i didn't soak them in bleach solution then.

pete

Yes, I think I just picked up something out of the blue on a few cuttings.  I did not use any cleaning agents etc.  I have about 40 cuttings in plastic cups at this time.  Summer has arrived here in Arkansas.  I am having to run the exhaust fan inside the greenhouse and misting every other hour to keep the temp from getting out of hand.  Thanks Pete for your comments.