The costs of desalination have fallen to fifty cents for every 1,000 litres of water.
Since 1000 liters of water equals 6.29 barrels of water, unless they plan to use a pipeline for their “river”, even at 50 cents, it could still get very expensive. I must check tomorrow and see what my utility is charging for water, which I believe is measured in cubic feet. If it is cubic feet per fluid barrel, that appears to be 4.21 cf/barrel.