More water will soon flow out of the dam that marks the start of the Apalachicola River in order to protect endangered species downstream, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Tuesday.

The changes, corps officials say, come after they spent more than a year consulting with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the status of threatened and endangered species in the river.

In November 2010, corps officials said they began consulting with the fish and wildlife service "because of new information that became available regarding the distribution and mortality of certain mussel species," Patrick Robbins, spokesman for the corps’ Mobile district, which manages water flow through the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river basin, of which Lake Lanier is a part.

Robbins said corps officials learned that mussels downstream of the dam were dying in the river as a result of previous operations.

Still, the corps said the changes at Jim Woodruff will be minor as a result, with flows from the dam ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 cubic feet per second instead of 5,000 to 8,000 cubic feet per second.

According to the news release, the changes likely will impact upstream reservoirs such as Lanier "by mere inches."

"Since we are already operating under drought contingency operations, stakeholders will not see any immediate change to operations as a result of these ... refinements," Robbins said.