Recently deposited fine-grained sediments in the Hudson River estuary contain radionuclides from global fallout produced by atmospheric bomb tests as well as from low-level releases of a local nuclear reactor. Accumulation rates of these nuclides are dependent on rates of sediment deposition and vary with location in the estuary by more than two orders of magnitude. Within the Hudson estuary, New York harbor is currently the zone of most rapid deposition of sediments containing radionuclides, some of which were released from a nuclear reactor about 60 kilometers upstream of the harbor.