The bioaccumulation of the pesticides chlorpyrifos and atrazine to the benthic oligochaeta Lumbriculus variegatus from four diverse artificially contaminated lake sediments (OC 0.13-21.5%) was studied in the laboratory. The steady state of bioaccumulation was not reached within 10d. Chlorpyrifos showed stronger bioaccumulation than the less lipophilic atrazine, the biota-sediment accumulation factors (BSAFs) being 6.2-99 for the former and 1.9-5.3 for the latter. While bioaccumulation factors (BAFs) dropped with increasing organic content of the sediments, the high level and considerable range of the obtained BSAFs indicate other sediment qualities, such as the age and characteristics of the organic material, having a strong effect on the bioavailability of these compounds. The slow and incomplete desorption of chlorpyrifos from the most inorganic sediment indicates also that this compound may be strongly bound to some type of inorganic material. Any specific influential sediment fraction or characteristic could not be identified.