[rsync]

"They have no water rights sufficient to create a farm in the middle of the desert."

They may have no water sufficient to create a farm in the middle of the desert, but I don't think it's a problem of water rights.

As a Colorado native I have a good sense of water rights, but as a farmer in California I have been (pleasantly ?) surprised by how little restriction or ownership there is attached to water here ... it is very unlikely that the water rights are not attached to their parcels and its possible that they were never detached at any point.

All they have to do is dig a well. Maybe nothing will come out, but nobody will stop them ...