RICHMOND – Infrastructure is a big deal to U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Blunt opened the infrastructure discussion last week while visiting the office of the Richmond News and The Excelsior Springs Standard by talking about a water project involving Ray County’s neighbor to the north, Caldwell County. “They’re getting ready to start breaking ground – big lake, 340 acres, principal purpose, drinking water. They’ve been working on it since 1980 and have needed it since 1980, but we never figured out how to get the federal money until about 11 years ago, when I got on the appropriating committee,” Blunt said. There is only one other similar project in the nation using the USDA’s National Resources Conservation Service component for funding, Blunt said. That project also is in Missouri – a 1,700-acre lake to produce drinking water in Sullivan County. “They may be the last two lakes ever built,” he said. “This (Caldwell County lake) is the…