diff --git a/dataretrieval/waterdata/utils.py b/dataretrieval/waterdata/utils.py
index 7070da50..444c1a4b 100644
--- a/dataretrieval/waterdata/utils.py
+++ b/dataretrieval/waterdata/utils.py
@@ -892,11 +892,13 @@ def _handle_stats_nesting(
     # otherwise return a geodataframe
     if not geopd:
         df = pd.json_normalize(body["features"]).drop(
-            columns=["type", "properties.data"]
+            columns=["type", "properties.data"], errors="ignore"
         )
         df.columns = df.columns.str.split(".").str[-1]
     else:
-        df = gpd.GeoDataFrame.from_features(body["features"]).drop(columns=["data"])
+        df = gpd.GeoDataFrame.from_features(body["features"]).drop(
+            columns=["data"], errors="ignore"
+        )
 
     # Unnest json features, properties, data, and values while retaining necessary
     # metadata to merge with main dataframe.
diff --git a/tests/waterdata_utils_test.py b/tests/waterdata_utils_test.py
index 36150be8..c533431d 100644
--- a/tests/waterdata_utils_test.py
+++ b/tests/waterdata_utils_test.py
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@
 
 from dataretrieval.waterdata.utils import (
     _get_args,
+    _handle_stats_nesting,
     _walk_pages,
 )
 
@@ -80,3 +81,33 @@ def test_walk_pages_multiple_mocked():
     assert mock_client.send.called
     assert mock_client.request.called
     assert mock_client.request.call_args[0][1] == "https://example.com/page2"
+
+
+def test_handle_stats_nesting_tolerates_missing_drop_columns():
+    """If the upstream stats response shape ever changes such that one of
+    the columns we try to drop ("type", "properties.data") is absent, the
+    function should still return a DataFrame instead of raising KeyError.
+    """
+    body = {
+        "next": None,
+        "features": [
+            {
+                "properties": {
+                    "monitoring_location_id": "USGS-12345",
+                    "data": [
+                        {
+                            "parameter_code": "00060",
+                            "unit_of_measure": "ft^3/s",
+                            "parent_time_series_id": "ts-1",
+                            "values": [{"statistic_id": "mean", "value": 10.0}],
+                        }
+                    ],
+                },
+            }
+        ],
+    }
+
+    df = _handle_stats_nesting(body, geopd=False)
+
+    assert len(df) == 1
+    assert df["monitoring_location_id"].iloc[0] == "USGS-12345"