HOUSTON - A five-mile section of the Houston Ship Channel was shut on Monday morning by a sunken barge, the U.S. Coast Guard said. The sinking took place at the Kinder Morgan Inc docks, located across the channel from where Vince Bayou enters the channel, according to the Coast Guard. Three refineries, Valero Energy Corp’s Houston plant, Lyondell Basell’s Houston Refinery and Petrobras Pasadena Refining Systems’s Houston plant, are located upstream from the shut section or in the area where ship traffic is halted.