Located 17 kilometres (11 mi) north-east of St George, the dam wall was completed in 1972.
The dam wall is 15.2 metres (50 ft) high and 2,571 metres (8,435 ft) long and holds back 81,800 megalitres (18.0×10^9 imp gal; 21.6×10^9 US gal) of water when at full capacity. The surface area of the reservoir is 2,850 hectares (7,000 acres) and the catchment area is 75,032 square kilometres (28,970 sq mi). The uncontrolled spillway has a discharge capacity of 5,550 cubic metres per second (196,000 cu ft/s).[2] Lake Kajarabie has an average depth of 2.4 metres (7 ft 10 in) and, when full, impounded water can back up some 75 kilometres (47 mi) along the Balonne River and almost 20 kilometres (12 mi) along the Maranoa River.