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WTC HARD HATS GET HAMMERED

Hard-drinking hard hats at the World Trade Center site have turned their lunch hour into happy hour, pounding beers and shots of hard liquor before returning to work, a Post investigation found.

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Dozens of workers belly up to the bar at gin mills on Murray Street — two blocks from the sacred soil of Ground Zero and America’s most scrutinized construction project — shortly before noon every day.

One group of three workers threw back eight drinks each in less than an hour before returning to the job.

Their power drinking is a violation of the Port Authority’s zero-tolerance policy — and escaped the notice of the agency’s safety investigators, who have conducted dozens of sweeps since taking control of Ground Zero construction in 2006.

Reporters watched hard hats for a week as they walked from the pit for their hourlong meal break, typically at about 11:45 a.m. Many headed north on West Broadway to Murray Street, which is lined with bars and pubs.

On Friday, June 19, three men working on the site’s transportation hub were spotted at Biddy Early’s Pub & Restaurant at 43 Murray St. The three pals plus a fourth worker gulped three beers and two shots of whiskey each during the lunch hour, when the bar was packed with construction workers.

They openly discussed their drinking, their Ground Zero work — and DWI arrests.

“We don’t have to worry until someone severs a hand,” joked one of the hard hats.

The three amigos went at it again on Wednesday, ordering three beers and two whiskeys apiece between noon and 1 p.m.

On Thursday, their boozefest kicked into overdrive.

The trio — the oldest man around 40 years old, the others baby-faced — sucked down four beers and four shots of hard liquor each in about 50 minutes.

That much booze would likely result in a blood-alcohol content of 0.14 to 0.16 percent — twice the state’s definition of drunk.

The three workers arrived at Biddy’s at about 11:50 a.m. The older hard hat ordered a Bass ale, and his buddies each got Budweisers. At 12:06 p.m., the youngest worker bought shots of clear liquor and three more beers. The men were then joined by a colleague named Johnny, who ordered a beer.

At 12:14, Johnny left and the other three bought another round of beers and three more shots of liquor. After more beers and shots, they left at 12:40 p.m. and walked back to Ground Zero, ducking into an entrance for workers to the side of the PATH station. They told a reporter they were working on the hub’s 1 train line.

The guzzling Ground Zero guys appeared to be regulars; a female bartender called them by their first names. They walked back to the pit all three times reporters observed them.

They weren’t the only ones pounding ’em back before doing some hammering.

On Tuesday at Uncle Mike’s at 57 Murray St., reporters saw five hard hats assigned to the Freedom Tower throw back three beers each in an hour. The group came in at about 11:50 a.m. and sat at the bar, ordering draft beers and bottles of Corona while flirting with a tall brunette bartender.

They drank three rounds at the raunchy joint, a music venue by night where the daytime crowd is mostly hard hats. They left at about 12:50 p.m., walking to the Ground Zero site and entering through a gate on West Broadway.

One was then spotted standing on a steel beam amid iron latticework that’s part of the Freedom Tower structure.

Another twosome downed two beers each at Uncle Mike’s on Tuesday, one of them also drinking a shot of vodka. They crudely barked orders to the bartender, whom they called “Sugar Pants.” They left at 12:55 p.m. and walked to the West Broadway workers’ gate.

On Wednesday, the pair came in at noon, one drinking two beers and the other having a single brew with hard-hat pals.

A friend walked in and yelled, “You guys are all degenerates, in here every day!”

“I promised myself I wouldn’t come in here Monday or Tuesday,” one barfly said.

His buddy replied, “Well, now it’s Wednesday!”

At 12:15, a female Post reporter walked in. The customers approached her, asking who she was. She said she was from out of town. One spotted her camera and said, “Take a picture of us!” They posed, and she took a single photo.

The grinning gang told her they were all ironworkers helping build a waterfall that is part of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.

When the reporter went to the bathroom, the bartender yelled, “Why would you let her take your picture? What the f- – – were you guys thinking?” She said the reporter could have been a labor investigator.

The bartender reached over the top of the bar and rifled through the reporter’s shopping bag, saying she was looking for the camera.

“Delete the picture,” one of the workers said.

They didn’t find the camera.

Later, a bar maintenance worker told the Post photographer that managers had observed people videotaping bar customers coming and going.

“The Port Authority does not tolerate this behavior and has a very strict no-alcohol, no-smoking policy,” said PA spokesman Steve Coleman. “Our inspector general’s office does weekly sweeps looking for inappropriate behavior, and if any worker is caught violating our policy, we confiscate their World Trade Center ID cards and work with our contractors on appropriate disciplinary action.”

About 700 workers are currently employed erecting the three PA-run projects — the transit hub, the memorial and the Freedom Tower. Hundreds more toil on four office towers being built by developer Larry Silverstein.

Additional reporting by Angela Montefinise

brad.hamilton@nypost.com