Cibola, ArizonaCNN 

— 
Situated in the Sonoran Desert near the Arizona-California border is the tiny rural town of
Cibola – home to roughly 300 people, depending on the season.

Life here depends almost entirely on the Colorado River , which nourishes thirsty crops like
cotton and alfalfa , sustains a nearby wildlife refuge and allows visitors to enjoy boating and
other recreation.

It’s a place few Americans are likely to have heard of, which made it all the more surprising
when investment firm Greenstone Management Partners bought nearly 500 acres of land  here.
On its website, Greenstone says its “goal is to advance water transactions that benefit both the
public good and private enterprise.” 

But critics accuse Greenstone – a subsidiary of the East Coast financial services conglomerate
MassMutual – of trying to profit off Cibola’s most precious and limited resource:  water. And
it comes at a time when Arizona’s allocation of Colorado River water is being slashed  amid a
decadeslong megadrought.

“These companies aren’t buying up plots of land because they want to farm here and be a part
of the community, they’re buying up land here for the water rights,” said Holly Irwin, a
Cibola resident and La Paz County district supervisor.

Cibola, Arizona, is home to around 300 people depending on the season. Its residents depend almost entirely on water from
the Colorado River.
Jeremy Harlan/CNN
Water from the Colorado River is used to irrigate crops in Cibola, Arizona.
Jeremy Harlan/CNN
Those water rights could soon benefit Queen Creek, Arizona, a growing Phoenix suburb about
200 miles away. Last September, the town approved the transfer of a $27 million purchase  of
Colorado River water from Greenstone’s properties in Cibola, though the deal is now mired
in a lawsuit filed by La Paz, Mohave and Yuma counties against the federal Bureau of
Reclamation for signing off on the water transfer.

The Bureau of Reclamation referred all lawsuit questions to the Department of Justice, which
did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. 

In a court-filed response to the counties’ lawsuit, DOJ attorneys argued that Reclamation’s
environmental assessment “fully satisfied” the National Environmental Policy Act. It
convincingly demonstrated that the transfer would not result in any significant impacts to the
environment: at most, it will result in a trivial reduction (for less than half the year) in the
flows in one stretch of the Lower Colorado River.”

After hearing arguments from the counties’ attorneys and DOJ attorneys on Wednesday, US
District Judge Michael Liburdi said he will make a ruling on the lawsuit in late April.