diff --git a/conda/meta.yaml b/conda/meta.yaml
index e0e75d6..0001bb5 100644
--- a/conda/meta.yaml
+++ b/conda/meta.yaml
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 {% set name = "tethysts" %}
-{% set version = "4.5.13" %}
+{% set version = "4.5.14" %}
 # {% set sha256 = "ae2cc83fb5a75e8dc3e1b2c2137deea412c8a4c7c9acca52bf4ec59de52a80c9" %}
 
 # sha256 is the prefered checksum -- you can get it for a file with:
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ requirements:
     - python >=3.8
     - pandas<2
     - tethys-data-models=0.4.11
-    - hdf5tools>=0.1.14
+    - hdf5tools>=0.2.3
     - s3tethys>=0.0.8
     - xarray>=2022.6.0
     - pydantic=1.10
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 25a174f..c43b537 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
 name = 'tethysts'
 main_package = 'tethysts'
 datasets = 'datasets/time_series'
-version = '4.5.13'
+version = '4.5.14'
 descrip = 'tethys time series S3 extraction'
 
 # The below code is for readthedocs. To have sphinx/readthedocs interact with
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
 if os.environ.get('READTHEDOCS', False) == 'True':
     INSTALL_REQUIRES = []
 else:
-    INSTALL_REQUIRES = ['zstandard', 'pandas<2', 'xarray>=2022.6.0', 'scipy', 'orjson', 'requests', 'shapely>=2.0.1', 'tethys-data-models>=0.4.11', 'hdf5tools>=0.1.14', 's3tethys>=0.0.8', 'pydantic==1.10', 'h5netcdf>=1.1.0']
+    INSTALL_REQUIRES = ['zstandard', 'pandas<2', 'xarray>=2022.6.0', 'scipy', 'orjson', 'requests', 'shapely>=2.0.1', 'tethys-data-models>=0.4.11', 'hdf5tools>=0.2.3', 's3tethys>=0.0.8', 'pydantic==1.10', 'h5netcdf>=1.1.0']
 
 # Get the long description from the README file
 with open(os.path.join(here, 'README.rst'), encoding='utf-8') as f:
diff --git a/tethysts/utils.py b/tethysts/utils.py
index 7d4db7f..5f91190 100644
--- a/tethysts/utils.py
+++ b/tethysts/utils.py
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@
 from datetime import datetime
 import zstandard as zstd
 import copy
+import pickle
 import botocore
 from shapely.geometry import shape, Polygon, Point
 from shapely.strtree import STRtree
@@ -36,6 +37,39 @@
 ### Helper functions
 
 
+def read_pkl_zstd(obj, unpickle=False):
+    """
+    Deserializer from a pickled object compressed with zstandard.
+
+    Parameters
+    ----------
+    obj : bytes or str
+        Either a bytes object that has been pickled and compressed or a str path to the file object.
+    unpickle : bool
+        Should the bytes object be unpickled or left as bytes?
+
+    Returns
+    -------
+    Python object
+    """
+    if isinstance(obj, str):
+        with open(obj, 'rb') as p:
+            dctx = zstd.ZstdDecompressor()
+            with dctx.stream_reader(p) as reader:
+                obj1 = reader.read()
+
+    elif isinstance(obj, bytes):
+        dctx = zstd.ZstdDecompressor()
+        obj1 = dctx.decompress(obj)
+    else:
+        raise TypeError('obj must either be a str path or a bytes object')
+
+    if unpickle:
+        obj1 = pickle.loads(obj1)
+
+    return obj1
+
+
 def update_nested(in_dict, ds_id, version_date, value):
     """