[4] The NSW Government modified the lakes (completed 1968) to improve their storage capacity for farming, recreation, mining and urban water supply and to help manage floods in the Darling River.

There is relatively little information on the flooding regimes of the lakes before they were regulated (dammed) in the 1960s but they were undoubtedly highly productive and important wetland systems where many fish were spawned.

Seven of the lakes have been incorporated in an artificially regulated overflow system providing both for flood mitigation and as storage for domestic use, livestock and irrigation downstream.

In January 2019, ABC News wrote the Chairperson of the Menindee Barkandji Elders Group, Patricia Doyle, called for better water management in the area.

Between December 2018 and January 2019, and again in late 2022 and early 2023, there were at least 5 mass fish deaths reported along a 40-km stretch of the Darling River,[7][8][9] downstream of the Menindee Lakes.

[10] Another report, commissioned by the government opposition leader Mr Bill Shorten MP, concluded the deaths were the result of low water flows and hot temperatures causing blue-green algal blooms.

The report also stated, "The conditions leading to this event are an interaction between a severe (but not unprecedented) drought and, more significantly, excess upstream diversion of water for irrigation.

"[4] The lakes are located approximately 110 kilometres (68 mi) south-east of Broken Hill[1] in the semi-arid zone on grey clay and duplex soils, and siliceous and calcareous sands of the far west region.

The shallow margins of the overflow lakes are studded with dead black box trees while the shores are dominated by bluerod and sandhill canegrass.

[12] Other waterbirds sometimes using the lakes in large numbers are Australasian shovellers, Australian shelducks, pied cormorants, yellow-billed spoonbills, Eurasian coots and white-headed stilts.