diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 93aa0a9..9ac4a81 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -4,6 +4,10 @@ All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
 The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/),
 and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html).
 
+## [1.9.0] - 2024-03-12
+
+- Eliminate the dependency on `dotenv`. However, the application will still load `dotenv` if it is available.
+
 ## [1.4.0] - 2020-04-18
 
 - Introduce server middlewares (#31)
diff --git a/eventboss.gemspec b/eventboss.gemspec
index 546c0d2..62232ee 100644
--- a/eventboss.gemspec
+++ b/eventboss.gemspec
@@ -22,9 +22,9 @@ Gem::Specification.new do |spec|
 
   spec.add_dependency "aws-sdk-sqs", ">= 1.3.0"
   spec.add_dependency "aws-sdk-sns", ">= 1.1.0"
-  spec.add_dependency "dotenv", "~> 2.1", ">= 2.1.1"
   spec.add_dependency "rexml", "~> 3.0"
 
+  spec.add_development_dependency "dotenv", "~> 3.1"
   spec.add_development_dependency "bundler", ">= 1"
   spec.add_development_dependency 'rake', '>= 10.0'
   spec.add_development_dependency "rspec", "~> 3.0"
diff --git a/lib/eventboss/version.rb b/lib/eventboss/version.rb
index cff56e4..b7aba54 100644
--- a/lib/eventboss/version.rb
+++ b/lib/eventboss/version.rb
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
 module Eventboss
-  VERSION = "1.8.1"
+  VERSION = "1.9.0"
 end