The Tinaroo Dam, officially the Tinaroo Falls Dam, is a major ungated concrete gravity dam with a central ogee spillway across the Barron River located on the Atherton Tableland in Far North Queensland, Australia. The dam\’s purpose includes irrigation for the Mareeba-Dimbulah Irrigation Scheme, water supply, hydroelectricity generation, and recreation. Completed between 1953 and 1958, the dam creates the impounded reservoir, Lake Tinaroo.
The dam is located close to Lake Barrine and Lake Eacham (Yidyam).
The dam wall, constructed with 223,000 thousand cubic metres of concrete, is 42 metres high and 533 metres long. The maximum water depth is 41.8 metres and at 100% capacity the dam wall impounds enough water from the Barron River to create a lake approximately 75% the size of Sydney Harbour with a capacity of 438,919 megalitres of water at 670 metres AHD. The surface area of the Lake Tinaroo is 3,500 hectares and the catchment area is 545 square kilometres.
Many species of fish and other aquatic animals populate the lake. The barramundi can grow to an enormous size in the lake because they have no natural predators. Each year, the lake is stocked with young barramundi from the Walkamin Research Station as the species is unable to breed in the lake due to the lack of access to salt water. Also present in Lake Tinaroo are eel-tailed catfish, sooty grunter, sleepy cod, mouth almighty, archer fish, spangled perch, long tom and many species of crayfish, including the red-claw and yabby.
A Stocked Impoundment Permit is required to fish in the dam.
Tilapia were illegally introduced into Lake Tinaroo and are now well established. They have been declared a noxious pest species and must be destroyed and buried if caught. It is illegal to possess, rear, sell or buy tilapia. It is also an offence to release tilapia into Queensland waterways or to use them as bait, live or dead.
