diff --git a/java-cloud-bom/release-note-generation/pom.xml b/java-cloud-bom/release-note-generation/pom.xml
index caa089e3a351..6cc525ea6fc9 100644
--- a/java-cloud-bom/release-note-generation/pom.xml
+++ b/java-cloud-bom/release-note-generation/pom.xml
@@ -16,8 +16,8 @@
 
 	<properties>
 		<project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
-		<maven.compiler.source>11</maven.compiler.source>
-		<maven.compiler.target>11</maven.compiler.target>
+		<maven.compiler.source>1.8</maven.compiler.source>
+		<maven.compiler.target>1.8</maven.compiler.target>
 		<checkstyle.skip>true</checkstyle.skip>
 	</properties>
 
diff --git a/java-cloud-bom/release-note-generation/src/main/java/com/google/cloud/ReleaseNoteGeneration.java b/java-cloud-bom/release-note-generation/src/main/java/com/google/cloud/ReleaseNoteGeneration.java
index 483df61ba1ed..c71e1b61cc3b 100644
--- a/java-cloud-bom/release-note-generation/src/main/java/com/google/cloud/ReleaseNoteGeneration.java
+++ b/java-cloud-bom/release-note-generation/src/main/java/com/google/cloud/ReleaseNoteGeneration.java
@@ -34,9 +34,12 @@
 import com.google.common.collect.Sets;
 import com.google.common.collect.Sets.SetView;
 import com.google.common.collect.Streams;
+import com.google.common.io.CharStreams;
 import com.google.common.io.Files;
 import java.io.File;
 import java.io.IOException;
+import java.io.InputStreamReader;
+import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
 import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.HashMap;
 import java.util.List;
@@ -617,8 +620,8 @@ static String fetchReleaseNote(String owner, String repository, String tag)
     builder.redirectErrorStream(true);
     Process process = builder.start();
     String output =
-        new String(
-            process.getInputStream().readAllBytes(), java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
+        CharStreams.toString(
+            new InputStreamReader(process.getInputStream(), StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
     boolean finished = process.waitFor(1, TimeUnit.MINUTES);
     Verify.verify(finished, "The process timed out");
     Verify.verify(0 == process.exitValue(), "The command failed: %s", output);