Kentucky universities are being awarded Homeland Security grants for new research in protecting the country from disasters.

Western Kentucky University, the University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville and others are being awarded a total of $17-million for a variety of projects.

The grants were announced on May 12 in Somerset by Homeland Security Undersecretary Jay Cohen and Congressman Hal Rogers.

WKU received nearly $800,000 to work in underwater threat detection.

UK was awarded money to research fingerprint detection.

Research will also take place at UK on a substance to protect buildings from terrorist attacks, while the University of Louisville is receiving a grant to advance the precision and accuracy of bridge inspections.

"We have a number of blast protection programs," stated Sam Varnado with the National Institute of Hometown Security.

"Materials in protection structures from blasts. We've come up with a way to render safe ammonium nitrate fuel oil mixture."

Such chemical mixtures were used in the Oklahoma City Bombing.