Why can't we make pumps that withstand salt, dammit. It seems pathetic.

How about like a medical pump? Have a flexible polyurethane tube that's squidged by cams to pump the seawater through it. The cams stay in the dry.

Just because we wants something doesn't mean we can have it, or at least not at a price we will accept.

It has to handle solids. Something more like a sewage pump.