soilDB 2.6.9 (2021-12-03)

Replaced functionality using {plyr}/{reshape2} with {base}/{data.table}
processSDA_WKT(): replaced {rgeos} with {wk} and {sf}
SDA_spatialQuery(): added query_string argument
get_SDA_property(): fixes for MIN/MAX aggregation (#219)
get_component_from_SDA(): fragment size thresholds now conform with new (clarified) NSSH definitions

soilDB 2.6.8 (2021-11-05)

fetchNASIS() upgrades: use data.table and base internally for data aggregation
fetchNASIS("components") now "sieves" rock fragments and human artifacts using same routines as for pedons; respects nullFragsAreZero argument
fetchKSSL(..., returnGeochemicalData = TRUE) safely returns 0-length data.frame when no data available

Removed several packages from Suggests: {gridExtra}, {ggplot2}, {viridisLite}, {mapview}, {rasterVis}
get_OSD(): Handle "NA" and type conversion for JSON results an convert spaces to underscores for file names as needed
fetchSCAN(): graceful handling of timeout and converted from {plyr} to {data.table}; (#161, #184)
get_EDIT_ecoclass_by_geoUnit(): graceful handling of timeout
get_SDA_muaggatt(): add query_string argument for parity with other "SSURGO on demand" / get_SDA_*() functions

get_SDA_pmgroupname() and get_SDA_hydric() now support alternate aggregation methods.
- Default for get_SDA_pmgroupname() is "dominant component", now also supports "dominant condition" and "none".
- Default for get_SDA_hydric() is a map unit level aggregation of components and assigns new classes ; now supports "dominant component", "dominant condition" and "none"