It's also on the way to Las Vegas, but requires you to detour on a dirt road for a significant distance. That's not going to happen -- it's simpler for tourists to just continue on their way to Las Vegas.
(And I'm not exaggerating when I say "in the middle of the desert". It's right on the edge of the Mojave National Preserve. This is not a good place for anything, let alone for agriculture.)
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Nipton,+CA+92364,+USA/@3...
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 ...