diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index 67a10984..fd4ab963 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ Description: Search, query, and download tabular and
 License: Apache License (== 2.0)
 URL: https://bcgov.github.io/bcdata/, https://catalogue.data.gov.bc.ca/, https://github.com/bcgov/bcdata/
 BugReports: https://github.com/bcgov/bcdata/issues
+Depends: R (>= 3.6)
 Imports:
     methods,
     utils,
diff --git a/R/utils.R b/R/utils.R
index e8098881..86c9521c 100644
--- a/R/utils.R
+++ b/R/utils.R
@@ -87,6 +87,15 @@ specify_geom_name <- function(cols_df, CQL_statement){
 
 bcdc_read_sf <- function(x, ...){
 
+  # avoid use of spherical geomotry while reading (#337):
+  # https://r.geocompx.org/read-write#geographic-web-services
+  uses_s2 <- suppressMessages(sf::sf_use_s2(FALSE))
+  on.exit(
+    suppressMessages(sf::sf_use_s2(uses_s2)),
+    add = TRUE,
+    after = FALSE
+  )
+
   if(length(x) == 1){
 
     return(sf::read_sf(x, stringsAsFactors = FALSE, quiet = TRUE, ...))